


The Rand Dossiers

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Comment Fic, F/M, Gen, Multi, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt, also the Defenders show up occasionally, misc other pairings in some prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2020-06-28 16:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 25,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19815976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Short promptfic and commentfic from Tumblr and elsewhere, collected here to have them all in one place, about the Iron Fist and Defenders characters. For simplicity's sake and so as not to clog the tags, I'm tagging with just the main Iron Fist characters, since the majority of fics contain some combination of them; other characters will appear depending on the prompts I get. Updated periodically with new batches of ficlets.Updated Jan. 17, 2020 with Ch. 13-31.





	1. Colleen and Jessica

[Originally posted on Tumblr.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/178809875513/prompt-from-busyfollowingbees-who-tumblr-wont)

* * *

It's the third night in a row that Colleen has been aware she's not alone on the rooftops above Chinatown. She's been distracted with other things - petty robberies; an attempted mugging; tracking leads on a new drug pipeline moving through the city (Mrs. Yang has been very helpful with that). But tonight there is time for a quick stop to a corner deli, and then it's back up to the rooftops again, with her breath smoking behind her in the cold winter air.

The touch of her feet on the roof is cat-light, but Jessica -- sitting in a nest made out of an old sleeping bag -- is already moving, turning, wrapping a hand around the iron railing of a fire escape ladder leading over the side of the building.

"Easy," Colleen says. "I'm on your side."

Jessica huffs out a breath that curls smokelike in the air and lets go of the iron rail. "Rand's girlfriend, right?"

"Not anymore." It's almost stopped hurting to say it. Jessica doesn't ask; Colleen doesn't offer. Instead she holds out the thermos in her gloved hands. "It's a cold night. I brought you coffee."

Jessica tucks her coat around her and settles back in her little nest on the rooftop. She holds up a brown paper bag. "Nice thought, but I've got something to keep me warm."

Colleen sits down beside her, folding her legs and tucking her feet under her. From up here, there's a view across the street of a Chinese restaurant, a bank, and a closed fish market. Out of professional courtesy, she doesn't ask who Jessica is watching or why. "It doesn't really warm you up. Hot coffee will."

Jessica rolls her eyes and takes the thermos. She unscrews the top, takes a long slug of coffee, shudders, and then pours the contents of the brown-bagged bottle into the thermos until it's brimming, then screws the top back on.

"Best of both worlds," she remarks, taking a drink. Then she holds it out to Colleen, her fingers cold-reddened in fingerless wool gloves.

Colleen takes a polite sip. She dislikes coffee and finds that it's not improved by whatever cheap swill Jessica poured into it.

But it's a cold night, and Jessica's right, she does feel a little warmer. She'll have to get back on patrol in a little while, but for now it's kind of nice to sit here with company, even if it's quiet, half-drunk company. They're lonely sometimes, these night patrols. There are times when it doesn't hurt to remind herself that it's not just her city to protect.


	2. Danny and Colleen babysitting Ward's kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a request for anything about Danny and Colleen. [Originally posted on Tumblr.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/179135414983/hi-in-light-of-the-if-cancellation-i-will-take)

It didn't matter how many times Colleen told herself that she could not possibly see Danny in their 7-year-old niece Allison. Danny and Ward weren't blood relatives, and even if by some chance they had been related, they were nothing at all alike.

... and yet.

It was no surprise that she saw plenty of Ward in Allison, especially in the child's recalcitrant stubbornness and a loyal-to-the-death streak that had already gotten her in and out of fights in school. And she had a poise and articulateness that was all Bethany. 

But Alli's sunny charm, the way she seemed to want to wrap up everyone around her in a blanket of love -- maybe all kids were like that to some extent, Colleen thought, but she _smiled_ like Danny. The resemblance wasn't physical; it was as if something of Danny's chi was somehow in that child's soul.

And maybe that was possible. Who knew what was possible, really, where Danny was involved? She had only to touch the tattoo curling around her wrist to remind her of that. Danny had been there when Alli was born. Maybe he'd given his baby niece a gift without even meaning to.

For whatever reason, she was one the best students Colleen had ever had. These days, Colleen taught little-kid classes in tai chi and karate three days a week at the community center, but she and Danny had both been giving Allison one-on-one lessons ever since the child was old enough to pay attention. (Given that Bethany and Ward were in some kind of awkward we're-not-together-but-we-get-along-for-the-child's-sake coparenting deal, neither of them minded the free babysitting.) 

And Alli was _good_ at it -- clumsy and gawky in the way of any child, but also graceful and self-possessed, copying Colleen's moves with puppyish eagerness.

"That's pure Ward, that hyperfocus she has," Danny remarked, sitting at the counter and watching Alli go through the moves Colleen had just taught her (with the child's own embellishments) on the cleared-out floor of the former dojo, turned apartment, now turned halfway back into a dojo again. He grinned suddenly. "She's a much better student, though."

"What did you teach Ward?" Colleen asked. Cup of tea in one hand, she leaned on the counter and ran her free hand through Danny’s curls.

"Oh, meditation, some basic self-defense moves, little bit of everything ..."

"Uncle Danny, look!" Allison squealed happily, and flipped a cartwheel, rebounding with one foot off a pillar in the middle of the room and nearly colliding with an end table.

"... And I'd rather teach the 7-year-old," Danny finished, and dived to rescue a stack of books teetering on the edge of the table.


	3. Touch-starved Danny/Colleen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this lovely tumblr prompt:](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/179441614528/hmmm-for-the-prompts-thing-how-about-touch-starved) _hmmm for the prompts thing how about touch starved with ironwing? ;) thanks in advance if you go for it!!! :D_

Colleen wakes in a darkened bedroom to the distant tickety-tickety sound of computer keys. She reaches out instinctively to the bed beside her, but Danny's side is cold.

She lies there for a little while, but his absence is a deep ache, the gentle tapping of keys a siren call that eventually she can't ignore. She rolls out of bed and pads off to use the bathroom, then walks quietly into the main room of the former dojo turned apartment.

Danny is at his computer setup in the corner. He glances up at her entrance -- she's not even sure how he knows she's there; maybe it's something chi-related, maybe he's just that attuned to his surroundings -- and flashes a quick grin at her that makes something inside her melt a little, even with the cool glow of the screens lighting half his face and the other half in shadow.

Yawning, she puts her arms around his shoulders, and leans her cheek against the tousled blond scruff on top of his head. "Long night?"

"Oh, just monitoring a fire in Little Italy. Emergency services has it under control, I think, but I was going to head out and help if it looked like they needed it."

She can't help grinning and giving a playful cuff to his shoulder, even as some part of her falls a little more in love with him. "Unless you have mystical fire-extinguishing powers, I think you can leave this one to the city's firefighters. You don't have to do it all, you know."

"I'm not doing that. I just want to help where I can. I promised Matt ..."

"I know what you promised him." She pulls on him gently until he rests against her, but she can still feel the tension in him. That boyish smile covers up a lot, she knows. The person who puts the most pressure on Danny has always been Danny himself. "But I'm telling you, it'll be okay if you take the rest of the night off. They'll be okay. Get some sleep and go protect the city in the morning."

She runs her hand down his chest, and she feels the moment when he gives in -- the way he simply melts against her, as if every part of him has gone boneless. Easing back, relaxing, simply being there with her, the way Danny can do.

He's like a cat sometimes, the way he loves to rub against her, or just be against her; he can spend hours lying in bed with her, curled against the curve of her hip, while Colleen works on her laptop or reads or simply lies there in perfect contentment.

There is some part of him that's still that lonely child from long ago. Some part of her too, she thinks. Two lonely children who found each other, filling up each other's empty places, making up for a lack of something she thinks neither of them even realized was missing.

"It's okay to take some time for you," she whispers, and he turns around in the circle of her arms, rising slowly enough that she can slip her embrace from his neck down to his ribs. She hears his soft intake of breath and eases up a little, mindful that he bruised his ribs stopping a liquor-store robbery a few nights ago.

But he doesn't let go; instead he picks her up. She laughs as she tightens her grip. "Sure you're not going to drop me?"

"Not planning on it anytime soon. Or putting you down, for that matter."

"I'm counting on that," she whispers against his mouth.

It can be a cold and lonely world; they both know that all too well. But here and now, it's warm.


	4. Colleen and Misty rescue breathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [this prompt on Tumblr:](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/180337513118/for-the-gen-prompt-colleen-and-misty-partners-in) _Colleen and Misty, partners in crimefighting._ Also for the CPR/Rescue Breathing square on my h/c bingo card.

There were times, these days, when Colleen spent so much time working with virtually indestructible people (or those who did a pretty good impression of at least _thinking_ they were, like Matt) that she tended to forget Misty was an ordinary person, as breakable as anyone.

Which was brought home to her when one of the human traffickers they were apprehending on a Red Hook dock smashed Misty over the head with a boathook. Dropping her gun, Misty slithered limply over the edge into the water.

"Misty!"

There was no question between going after the fleeing smugglers or going into the water after her friend. Colleen sheathed her katana and dived off the pier into water as cold and dark as death.

Sinking into the black water, she lit up the Fist, and its cold white light blazed through the murky water off the end of the pier. It was deep here, meant for bringing in deep-water ships. Colleen held her breath and kicked her way deeper. Her jacket grew heavy with water; the katana tangled with her legs. She couldn't go too much farther down without having to come up for air.

But there was a flash of Misty's red jacket in the light of the Fist. Colleen released her chi with relief -- trying to hold onto it for this long was terribly draining -- and got hold of Misty under the arms before kicking toward the surface.

They broke the dark water with a splash. Colleen put Misty in a rescue hold -- a long-ago lesson from Bakuto coming back to her -- and swam toward the shore. Misty was terribly limp in her arms; she didn't respond to Colleen's attempts to rouse her. Her sodden head lolled against Colleen's shoulder.

Colleen dragged them both out onto the rocks and concrete of a breakwater. Misty was as limp as a rag doll, and Colleen discovered that her phone wouldn't power on, a casualty of the salt water.

"Misty! Damn it ..."

Misty wasn't breathing, but a light pulse fluttered when Colleen pressed her fingertips against Misty's cold throat. Colleen took a deep breath, tilted her friend's head back, and breathed for her.

As she did so, she gathered chi in the hands pressed firmly to Misty's face and chin. Her fingertips tingled, and she felt Misty's cold skin growing warmer beneath her hands.

She couldn't heal the way Bakuto might have been able to teach her. Thinking back to the way he'd taught Danny to purge her body of poison ... it hurt, sometimes, an ache that was equally for the things she might have learned if he'd lived, and for the person she'd thought he was and then learned that he wasn't. But she had been trying to teach herself, the same way she'd taught herself to channel her chi into the katana. It wasn't like her life didn't give her ample opportunity to try to heal herself. She got few opportunities to try it on someone else, though. It was a very different feeling, sharing her chi with someone else rather than gathering and focusing it around her own injuries. She could feel it leaving her, trickling into Misty's body, centering around Misty's head injury and her water-heavy lungs ...

Misty jerked suddenly, choked, and began to cough violently. Colleen rolled her to the side as Misty hacked and coughed. She kept up the trickle of chi, offering her own energy to warm Misty's cold body and vitalize her weakened life force.

She wasn't sure if she planned to tell Misty that she'd done it. Misty tended not to have the most positive reaction to phrases like "I used my chi to heal you."

"What ..." Misty groaned, trying to raise her flesh-and-blood hand to touch her head. Colleen caught her fingers.

"Don't. Just lie still."

Misty subsided, sprawled on the breakwater -- her compliance a sign of how terrible she must feel. Colleen peeled off her own jacket, sodden though it was, and put it over her friend. It wasn't a cold night, but the wind cut through the light shirt she was wearing as it clung wetly to her skin.

"My phone's dead," Colleen said. "Do you have yours?"

"Backup ..." Misty coughed again. "They'll be here in a minute ... anyway."

As if to underscore her words, the sound of sirens rose above the sound of waves slapping the breakwater and the pier.

"I guess this ought to be my cue to leave before awkward questions need to be answered." But Colleen hesitated; she didn't like leaving her friend just lying there.

"Awkward questions ..." Misty paused to cough. "Like questions about a jacket two sizes too small for me ... with a dragon embroidered on it in silk."

"Uh, yeah." Colleen shrugged back into the jacket. "You gonna be okay?"

"Fuck, my _head_ ... I will be." Misty sat up with some difficulty, the servos in her metal arm whining. "This thing's gonna need a checkup after its little saltwater bath," she muttered, her grip slipping on the rocks. "Did we get any of 'em, or am I the only casualty of the evening?"

"We got most of them." Colleen pointed to the pier, where the majority of the gang were still sprawled. Flashing red and blue lights reflected off the warehouses down the street. "I'd better get moving."

"I owe you one," Misty said, her voice gravelly as she fought off another coughing fit.

"Like when you saved me from a twenty-story fall last week? You'll probably save my life again before the week's out."

With that, she squeezed Misty's left hand and scrambled ashore. One quick climb up a fire escape later, she was on top of a nearby warehouse, crouched down to watch Misty's fellow police wrap her up in jackets and escort her ashore while others cuffed the suspects on the pier.

Right before she was hustled into a warm squad car, Misty looked up at the rooftops like she knew Colleen was up there, and gave her a thumbs up.

Colleen grinned, and returned it, even though she knew Misty couldn't see her. Knight and Wing ... they did make a pretty good team, after all.


	5. Dragon!Danny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a discussion on the Iron Fist discord about Danny as an actual, literal dragon. [Originally posted on Tumblr.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/180913372923/there-was-a-discussion-on-the-iron-fist-discord)

"No," Luke said flatly. _"No."_

"I told you I turn into a dragon." It was Danny's voice, but deeper, coming from somewhere above Matt's head.

"Yeah, but I thought that was ... you know! A metaphor!"

"What's metaphorical about turning into a dragon?" Danny sounded honestly baffled. And ... overhead. And large.

Matt pulled off a glove and cautiously reached out a hand. He wasn't sure how to deal with what his heightened senses were telling him, which was that there was something _huge_ , and very warm, where Danny had been.

His fingertips brushed scales -- living, moving scales. _Warm_ scales. He'd held a snake once, as part of a school science project, but this wasn't like that. It felt as if Danny, or whatever Danny had become, had been lying in a sunbeam, even though it was the middle of the night.

"Dude," Luke said. "Are you _petting_ him."

"It's okay, Matt," Danny said. Something brushed the top of Matt's head, and he jerked and reached up quickly to feel what was -- yes ... there was no way around it ... the snout of some enormous creature. "You can touch me as much as you need to. I don't mind."

Jessica had been silent throughout all of this. Finally she said, "There is not enough alcohol in the world for this day."

*

Colleen loved snuggling with Danny as a dragon. Obviously human Danny had plenty of his own charms, but he was so _warm_ as a dragon, like a furnace, and she loved the way he liked to tuck a green and gold wing over her. She wasn't quite prepared to admit how much she liked that safe feeling, wrapped up in Danny's wings ... but she really liked it.

But mostly she liked warming her feet on him. 

"What am I, your personal hot water bottle?" Danny asked, lazily cracking a green eye open. The tip of his tail twitched. He was sprawled all over the interior of the dojo while Colleen sat on the floor with her back leaning against him, a laptop on the floor in front of her, and her feet tucked underneath a coil of Danny's tail.

"Yes," she said, patting his scales.

"Damn right," Danny said, and closed his eyes again.

*

"So I found that picture I mentioned the other day," Ward said, reaching inside his jacket. He placed a photo on the countertop in the refurbished dojo. "I figured it was probably still in Joy's stuff somewhere."

Danny snatched it up, and laughed. "Colleen! Come look!"

"What is it?" Colleen asked, turning around with a half-poured cup of tea in hand.

"It's a baby picture of me," Danny said, holding it out in her direction.

"I've seen pictures of you as a kid," she began, and then said, "Oh, my god."

The photo was a Polaroid, faded by time and slightly blurred. Colleen assumed the boy in the photo was the child version of Ward, consisting mostly of knees and elbows and a thundercloud scowl; she guessed he was about nine or ten. There was a tiny green and gold dragon, about as big as a large cat, curled around his neck with one clawed forefoot tangled in his hair and its tail wrapped around his neck. 

Ten-year-old Ward looked intensely annoyed about this.

On the other hand, Danny as a baby dragon was cuter than she would have believed possible. She suddenly wanted twelve.

Ward leaned an elbow on the counter to look at it. "We weren't allowed to take pictures of you as a dragon, but Joy got a Polaroid for her birthday, and, well. We went a little nuts with it."

"I totally forgot that I used to sit on your shoulder all the time." Danny grinned over the top of Colleen's head at Ward. "You hated it."

"Of course I hated it. You set my hair on fire!"

"That was _one time_ \--"

"And I don't even know how many times you bit my ear."

"By accident," Danny said. "... Mostly."

"I gotta say, it was a little startling to have you go from ..." Ward held a hand about two feet off the ground. "... about yea big the last time I saw you, to the size of a city bus when you came back. At least you're too big to sit on my shoulder now."

"Oh really?" Danny said, withdrawing from Colleen's immediate personal space.

"Danny, no!" Colleen exclaimed, as there was the sudden blast of hot wind that marked Danny's transformations, and suddenly the dojo was full of scaly coils of Danny. She teetered at the sudden appearance of a tail under her feet, but managed to keep hold of the photo and not spill her tea. They had few breakable objects left by this point, at least nothing that was sitting in easy reach of an unexpected transformation, but there was the sound of a table tipping over and a few books hitting the floor.

Danny laid his large, scaly head on Ward's shoulder. Ward's look of alarm turned to an expression of annoyance that perfectly mirrored the one in the photo.

"Get off."

"Make me," Danny said cheerfully, and leaned on him -- not the entire dragon, just the neck and shoulders part, and Colleen could tell he wasn't leaning hard, but Ward staggered sideways and had to catch himself on the counter.

"You're like a Great Dane that thinks it's a lapdog. Go. Get off. Sit. Colleen!"

Colleen helpfully took a picture with her phone, and texted it to Claire.

"Not what I meant," Ward said, scowling harder. Danny rested a claw-tipped wing on Ward's other shoulder and looked smug. Ward tried to edge away sideways, but fenced in by Danny on both sides, he couldn't move. "You're enjoying being bigger than I am, aren't you?"

"More than you would believe," Danny said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A snippet of the originating Discord chat that I pasted into the text doc:
> 
> _I love the idea of dragon!Danny wrapping his wings around people he likes_   
>  _like just ... a big protective/cuddly dragon wing_   
>  _(he basically likes doing this with Ward except in the most pesky little-brother way imaginable xD)_   
>  _also the climax of Defenders would've gone very differently ... instead of needing Danny to open a gate, they might be trying to capture him so they could obtain dragon blood and other parts from him, for immortality_   
>  _they want to vivisect him basically_   
>  _protect him :(_


	6. Defenders Hogwarts AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hogwarts AU, Defenders style. [Originally posted in a DW comment.](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/139838.html?thread=5239358#cmt5239358)

It was going to ruin her reputation if word got around that she'd been helping out Gryffindors, Jessica thought with an inward sigh, but the rest of her house would just have to understand, and anyway, anyone who'd seen Luke Cage on the Quidditch pitch would _definitely_ understand why she couldn't just let a boy with shoulders like that get eaten by an Acromantula, even if he was on the other team.

And even if it also meant incidentally saving the other two with him, that one blind kid from the Gryffindor fourth-years and a little blond kid that she vaguely recognized as one of the first-years, wearing a scarf in Hufflepuff colors, and sniffling with Luke's arm around him.

"It's Jessica from Potions, isn't it?" the blind Gryffindor said, tilting his head to the side, and damn it, someday she would figure out what spell he used to recognize people at a distance in that uncanny way he had.

"I was passing by and heard screaming," Jessica said, lowering her wand. "Can't any of you lot go anywhere without getting into trouble?"


	7. Misty and Colleen, cold hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "cold hands", [posted in a DW comment.](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/139838.html?thread=5683774#cmt5683774)

"You look cold," is the first thing Colleen says when she shows up.

"I'm freezing," Misty retorts. She hates winter in New York sometimes. It feels like her left hand is a solid block of ice. The right one, the one she doesn't have anymore, still feels warm, the way hands and feet can get out of balance sometimes, except there's nothing she can do about it anymore. She can't clasp her hands together to warm them.

Instead she pulls off her left glove with her teeth and flexes the fingers to try to get some circulation back into them.

"Here, let me." Colleen closes her hand over Misty's icy fingers. A faint glow starts up under her skin, making the bones of her hand stand out like shadows, and tingling warmth spreads through Misty's fingers until she's warmed through and through.

Colleen lets her go with a grin. "Now I know why Danny's hands were always so warm," she says.

"Show-off," Misty mutters, but she's smiling as she stretches her warmer, limber fingers.


	8. Two very short Danny & Ward ficlets

These were both written for the Three-Sentence Ficathon on DW.

For the prompt [Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/139838.html?thread=5665854#cmt5665854):

"I tried to kill you," Ward murmurs. "I'm sorry. I'm _sorry_ , Danny."

"I know," Danny says. It's the delirium talking; they've never really talked about this particular aspect of their once-fraught relationship, and he doesn't think Ward would have brought it up if he weren't completely off his head with fever. As far as Danny's concerned, it's over, it's done; he knows Ward would never do anything like that now. He just didn't know it still bothered Ward that much. "I know, but you took a bullet for me, and that makes us even, don't you think?"

* * *

For the prompt [I'm gonna go get blitzed on ibuprofen](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/139838.html?thread=5684030#cmt5684030):

"Enough," Ward pants, "stop it, I'm tapping out."

Danny salutes him with his wooden bokken -- Ward clumsily returns the gesture -- and lets it drop to his side. "You're doing great, for a beginner."

"Yeah, and I've found muscles I didn't even know I had. I'm done with swordfighting torture for today. I'm gonna go get blitzed on ibuprofen and pass out," and at Danny's alarmed look, "Calm down, it's a _joke,_ you can't get high off ibuprofen. All you'll do is destroy your kidneys."

Danny manages not to ask if Ward has actually tried it. He thinks he might not want to know the answer.


	9. Danny meets Shou-Lao the Undying again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Posted on Tumblr](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/182469963523/ooo-prompt-for-iron-fist-danny-has-to-go-back) for the prompt: _Danny has to go back and talk to Shou Lao about the Fist and when the Dragon finds out Danny "gave away" his gift, he tries to egg him into fighting him again because "NO ONE SPURNS MY GIFT."_

"So I hear they call you the Little Dragon," the dragon rumbled, as Danny dangled from his enormous claws. Sarcasm dripped from his tone. "Do you need a reminder what a _real_ dragon is like?"

"I could never forget such power as yours."

"And yet you did forget," Shou-Lao growled into Danny's face, "for you spurned my gift, you _gave it away!"_

That last was a roar -- deafening, terrifying, mere inches from his face. The dragon dropped him, and though he was half-stunned from that numbing burst of sound, Danny twisted instinctively and managed to land on his feet.

Not that it helped him a second later when the dragon's huge jaws snapped at him. Danny threw himself to the side, rolling away. He scrambled to his feet and stood panting, looking up at Shou-Lao's bulk.

When he'd been here before, he had been trying to kill the dragon. But that was a younger him; it was the (somewhat) older and (hopefully) wiser Daniel Rand who stood before Shou-Lao today.

"Great dragon --"

"Silence!" The vast jaws snapped at him again; he flung himself aside again, but the side of the dragon's iron-hard head struck him a painful blow to the shoulder and he barely managed to roll with it, bruising himself on the rocks of the cave floor. "You think the Iron Fist is a trinket, to be passed around at will? I rue the day I ever bestowed my blessing upon you!"

The smell of the cave had hit him like a hammerblow to the memory as soon as he'd stepped inside: that reek of brimstone and cold ashes and animal musk. As Danny staggered to his feet, blood trickling down the side of his face, he still remembered his terror and his conviction, at the time, that he was going to die here.

Since then, he'd learned there were things he feared more than death. And it was with a certain inner calm, this time, that he faced up to the fact that he was, perhaps, even more likely to die this time, because he had no intention of fighting to kill.

"I'm not going to fight you," he said calmly. "I'm here to talk."

Shou-Lao swept at him with claws like scimitars. He leaped, caught the top of the dragon's paw, and vaulted onto a boulder. Once, he'd avoided most of Shou-Lao's attacks like this --

But he was unprepared for the dragon's whipping tail, wrapping around his legs and slamming him with brutal force face-first into a boulder. Before he could recover, Shou-Lao caught him up in a powerful grip once again. He could have fought to break it, or slithered free, but instead he simply waited, blinking blood out of his eyes.

"You punched me in the heart, once," the dragon rumbled. "Have you come so low in the world that you do not even fight to defend yourself?"

"I'm here to talk," Danny repeated.

Shou-Lao opened his jaws. Danny waited as calmly as he could, thinking through his options. His arms were pinned, but he thought he could still get free, perhaps dropping straight down through Shou-Lao's fingers, or startling the dragon by jumping straight into his mouth -- no, that was a bad idea --

The massive jaws, capable of crushing Danny without effort, snapped shut inches from his face. The dragon's saliva splattered his skin, burning slightly where it touched. Shou-Lao turned, and, walking on three legs and holding Danny in his paw, carried him into the cave.

"Does this mean you're willing to talk?" Danny asked hopefully.

The cave's dank, twisting gullet wound downward and opened out into ...

... a enormous, tastefully furnished apartment. All the furniture was dragon scale, but it was full of art objects made on a human scale -- they _were_ human art, Danny thought, astonished and staring around as best he could while being held in the dragon's punishing grasp. Porcelain bowls of finest Korean whiteware, silk wall hangings, Renaissance paintings, Tang Dynasty horses, modern sculptures that could be from any continent ... 

Down here, it smelled nothing like the upper reaches of the cave; the smells were the refined scents of incense and paper, with perhaps a slight undertone that seemed a trifle scorched, as if someone had set a very old book on fire, a long time ago.

Shou-Lao dropped him roughly on a piece of dragon-sized furniture, a padded couch that could easily have accommodated an entire team of draft horses. Above it, a massive table loomed (low by the standards of the rest of the furniture, but above Danny's head); it appeared to be made from either a solid piece of jade, or cunningly carved smaller pieces that fitted together without a seam.

Danny jumped, caught the edge of it, and pulled himself up just as a bathtub-sized bowl clanked to the table. It was full of steaming green tea. He could have floated in it.

Shou-Lao swiveled his giant head around and then, carefully, with two clawtips, picked up a human-sized tea bowl of delicate green porcelain from among his extensive art collection and set it beside Danny with the tiniest of clicks, not chipping so much as a bit of its glaze.

After a slightly dazed moment, Danny picked it up and stood on tiptoe to dip it into the enormous tea bowl.

Shou-Lao flopped on the couch opposite him with a tremendous creaking of the furniture, and reached for his own bowl of tea on the edge of the table. In the dragon's huge claws, it looked no bigger than a normal cup. "Do you know how long it's been since someone came here just to talk? I hope you are an interesting conversationalist, Daniel Thomas Rand."

"What happens if I'm not?"

Shou-Lao grinned, showing every fang. "I will eat you."

Danny took a careful sip of his tea to cover his expression until the dragon laughed, a great bellowing roar. "Of course I'm not going to eat you. Not _raw,_ certainly, and not without careful preparation in a decent sauce. Humans are stringy and not very flavorful. The meat requires careful handling. But anyway." He leaned forward, arcing his head over the table, fixing Danny with a single golden eye the size of an SUV windshield. "Tell me more of what has brought you here, and why you gave my gift away. I shall decide whether to eat you after."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shou-Lao is an Eastern dragon and therefore has civilized tastes. He's not going to want to just live in any old cave.


	10. Luke/Danny hospital AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Posted on Tumblr](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/182599644723/powerfist-hospital-au-d) for a request for a Luke/Danny hospital AU.

Night ER shifts were the worst. It was either incredibly boring (though Danny kind of enjoyed the opportunity to chat with patients and brighten up their night a little bit), or it was very exciting, but not in the good way.

Tonight was one of the exciting nights: multiple car accidents, a couple of overdoses, a gang clash that ended with six people injured. Danny was grabbing a moment to have a cup of coffee and a sandwich when Claire stuck her head into the break room. "Hey, we just got word on inbound casualties from a shootout in Hell's Kitchen."

Danny blew out his breath and put the mostly-uneaten sandwich back in the employee fridge. "Some nights, huh?"

"Must be a full moon," Claire agreed. Danny looked baffled. "Oh, you know, full moon? Superstition that lots of crazy things -- you know what, never mind. Sometimes I think you must have been raised in a monastery."

 _Private tutors, college at 16,_ he could have said -- but didn't, because he hated the feeling he got (the looks he got) when people found out what his upbringing had been like. He knew that he'd had a lot of advantages in life; he knew how lucky he was to have graduated from medical school with no debt in his early 20s, moving on to a residency at a metro hospital he had carefully selected so his mother _wasn't_ on the board of directors.

But it also meant he'd missed out on a lot. His social life hadn't been exactly ... normal. His parents had been politely supportive of his life choices (at least he didn't have to deal with the kind of crushing parental expectations that both Joy and Ward did) but he also knew that they hoped he would change his mind and come back to run the company eventually. Neither of them could understand why he would rather spend his days dealing with sick people, covered in blood and much more unpleasant bodily fluids, when he could have been sitting in a corner office at Rand.

Danny tossed down the last gulp of stale coffee and went back out to the ER.

The influx of casualties had just come in, blood turning police uniforms and casual clothes the same dark red; a reminder that when they came through those doors on those gurneys, it didn't matter who they were or what they'd done five minutes ago -- the struggle to save lives was what mattered.

Danny wasn't even sure if the guy on the gurney in front of him was cop or con. In a bad way, was what he was; barely breathing, and Danny couldn't even tell how he _was_ still breathing with the clear evidence of his blood-sodden, bullet-holed clothing that he'd taken a couple of rounds point blank to the chest. The nurses were all busy, so Danny reached for the kit himself, preparing to get the IV catheter in place, when the man's eyes came open and his hand shot out and grabbed Danny's arm.

"Kid," he whispered. "Hey, kid. Can you push this gurney around the corner?"

"Calm down," Danny told him, pushing up his sleeve to find a puncture site, and added, "I'm a doctor," because he'd realized that he had probably been mistaken for an intern or a nurse -- it happened a lot; he was not only young for a resident, but baby-faced on top of it. "Just settle down; you're going to be okay. What's your name?"

"It's Luke, and listen, I really need you to push me around the corner."

Danny tried unsuccessfully to free himself from the grip on his arm; this guy had a grip like iron. "No, I really don't need to do that. You've been shot."

"Listen, I need privacy for a minute. Please."

"I don't care _what_ you need to do, trust me, we've seen it all here --" He was having trouble finding a vein. He should probably have just gotten Claire. 

Luke's dark eyes searched his face. "Kid. Please."

The thing about Danny -- the thing that made him the most popular doctor in the entire hospital with the patients, and put him in a sort of ongoing love-hate relationship with the nurses -- was that he'd always had trouble saying no to anyone who genuinely needed something. It was the whole reason he'd wanted to be a doctor in the first place. "Okay, I'll do it, if you'll hold still and let me get an IV in you."

He shoved the gurney around the corner, into a hallway out of sight of the main ER. A harried nurse hurried past pushing a crash cart, but no one was paying attention to either of them.

"Thanks," Luke said, heartfelt, and he sat up and started pulling off the monitoring electrodes stuck on him.

"Hey! No! Wait!" Danny tried ineffectually to push him back down. "You've been _shot_ \--"

But he was starting to realize that something was clearly not right here. The guy _had_ been shot. The evidence of the bullet holes in his hoodie said so. The hoodie which he was currently stripping off, smoothly and efficiently and not at all like someone who'd just taken several rounds to the chest.

His chest was -- amazing. For several reasons, but one reason was that it didn't have a scratch on it despite the fact that Danny could see light through the bullet holes in the hoodie as Luke stripped it off over his head.

"What the hell," Danny said in spite of himself, and he reached out to touch Luke's chest, only jerking his hand back when Luke gave him a look. "I'm a doctor," he defended himself, blushing. "I'm only trying to -- listen -- what the _hell_ , man? Where'd all the blood come from?"

"The blood's not mine," Luke said, and Danny looked at him in disbelief. "Okay, just listen. I'm an undercover cop. I know this all looks weird, but I need something clean to change into. You don't have to help; I know you're busy. Just point me at a supply closet."

He swung his legs off the gurney and then sat there for a minute, breathing hard.

"Okay, you _are_ hurt," Danny said, moving quickly to support him. "Look, there could be internal trauma, concussion injuries -- you need to --"

"What I need," Luke said, taking a deep breath, "is to change into something I can walk out of this hospital in, without looking like a gunshot victim."

"You _are_ a gunshot victim!" But it was clear Danny wasn't going to win this argument. "Okay, look, I can get you clean scrubs, or -- no, we've got a bunch of stuff in the Lost & Found, I bet you can find something that'll fit you there. C'mon this way."

A few minutes later, Danny was swiping his card to unlock an employee side entrance. Luke was moving better, looking better, and Danny was starting to think he was just misreading the whole situation ... except, while Luke was digging through clothes in the Lost & Found, Danny had looked at the tip of the insertion needle for the IV and found that it was bent, like someone had slammed it into a steel plate.

And maybe it was a defective one, but ...

Something was weird here. He wanted to know what.

"So you're a cop?" he said. "A bulletproof cop? That sounds awesome."

"It's complicated." Luke grimaced. "I shouldn't even have told you that much, uh --" He glanced at Danny's name tag. "Danny. Trust me, you don't want to be mixed up in what I'm mixed up in."

 _But maybe I want to be._ Nobody had ever accused Danny of taking the easy, reasonable path through life. "Look, if I wanted to get in touch with you, how would I do that? To follow up," he added quickly. "On your injuries."

"I don't have any --"

"Listen, I'm a medical professional, and your breathing didn't sound great for awhile there. Even if you can survive being shot, you can still get internal concussion trauma. Just put my mind at ease and give me a way to make sure you don't go home tonight and suffocate."

Luke huffed out a sigh, then rolled his eyes and grinned. Apparently Danny wasn't the only one who had trouble saying no to people. "Look me up at the 29th Precinct," he said, and was gone out the door, into the night.


	11. Danny and Colleen in a hot springs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Posted on Tumblr](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/182602834068/for-your-fic-requests-something-ironwing) for a request for _something ironwing? anything tooth rottingly sweet or fluffy will do._

They were in northern China in pursuit of rumors of the Hand when they stumbled upon the hot springs.

It was late winter and bitterly cold, snow swirling across both of them, and at first they thought the clouds of steam were smoke. It wasn't until they came to the top of a path leading down into the valley that Danny laughed suddenly and said, "Oh, it's a hot springs! Have you ever been to one?"

"I went a couple of times when I was a kid in Japan, I think." She remembered it only vaguely; it hadn't made that much of an impression on her, but it wasn't really the sort of thing you were impressed by at age nine, and any emotional impressions left behind had been washed away by other, more painful childhood memories. To wash away memories she didn’t want to think about, she asked, "Did you have them in K'un-Lun?"

"Oh yeah, sure we did." Danny took her hand, wool-gloved fingers curling around hers. "They're best in the winter."

With that, he led the way down the hill, the two of them pushing their tired legs through the snow.

"I think it's abandoned," Colleen said as they approached. There was no sign of anyone here, no lights in windows. The hot springs had been developed for visitors once, this much was clear to see in the blue winter afternoon, but it looked as if it had been abandoned for years. The roofs of some of the little wooden buildings had caved in, and snow covered everything, slicking the narrow wood-slatted paths winding between the pools.

Despite the damage from the elements over the years, some of the buildings were still warm, heated by steam pipes from the hot springs. They picked the most intact of these to camp in, and dropped their packs and sleeping bags on the floor.

"I can't believe it. A whole hot springs all to ourselves." Colleen grinned, and peeled her boots and socks off her aching feet. "Race you."

It was very obviously just the two of them in the entire valley, so there was no need to bother with bathing suits. She shed all her clothes in the freezing air and then dashed, giggling, naked and barefoot, through the snow to the nearest pool. She paused just long enough to test it with a quick dip of her hand to make sure she wasn't about to fry herself, finding the temperature nice before she dived in.

An instant later, Danny arrived with a tremendous splash.

"Your _onsen_ etiquette is terrible," Colleen declared, poking him with her bare foot under the surface of the hot water. 

Danny just grinned unrepentantly at her. Snowflakes settled in his hair, and there were already icicles forming in his curls and his beard, freezing in the steam rising up from the springs. She could feel her own hair starting to frost up, and dipped lower, letting the water rise up to cover her shoulders.

They swam, splashed and played in the pool. It was incredibly quiet whenever she stopped to listen, quiet enough that she could hear snowflakes settle in the pool and the soft splashing of the water along the edges.

"What do you think happened here?" she asked, floating on her back and looking up at the swirling snowflakes.

"I guess they just went out of business or something. There are a lot of hot springs in China. Maybe whoever used to run it had to leave, and nobody came back to start it up again." Danny grinned and swam in to hook an arm around her bare back, pulling their naked bodies together. "What a shame. Just the two of us."

She laughed and wrapped her arms around him, diving and pulling them both toward the swirling depths of the pool.

They didn't climb out until it started to get dark. Relaxed from the release of more than just the water, they splashed out on the snow-covered edge of the pool and hurried across the snow-covered stretch of old boardwalk between themselves and their camp to hastily dry themselves on clothing pressed into service as towels, before crawling into a shared sleeping bag to warm up again. The abandoned building -- probably a guest house, once upon a time -- was warmer than the ambient air, but not quite enough to be comfortable for pool-wet bodies.

When they'd warmed up enough, they scrambled into sweaters and sweatpants (with a lot of giggling as they tried to dress in the confines of the sleeping bag) and then Colleen pitched a tent -- it felt weird to pitch a tent _inside_ a house, but it would be warmer than just sleeping in their bags -- while Danny set up a camp stove and made dinner.

"I'm so glad I got to share this with you," he said quietly, handing her a cup of soup.

"Me too." She curled her hands around it and sat with him beside the camp stove. Outside the open door of their cabin, the night was dark, but they were inside and relatively cozy. There was no snow in here; she had thick wool socks on her feet and a sleeping bag pulled around her shoulders, and she was perfectly comfortable. "What were the hot springs in K'un-Lun like?"

"Rock pools, mostly. I used to go there a lot with Davos." He got a little sad, the way he often did when the topic of his sort-of-brother came up. "What about you? What were hot springs in Japan like?"

"I don't remember them that well. A little bit touristy, I think." Those pools had been neat and tidy and built in squares with dressing rooms, divided for men and women; she had gone with her small hand tucked into her grandmother's. And then her grandmother had died too, and she'd ended up in the US, with Bakuto ...

She moved closer to Danny, snuggling into his side. "I think I like these better," she confessed quietly.

Danny put an arm around her, leaning against her. "Me too," he whispered into her damp hair.


	12. De-Aged Ward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU of the already-somewhat-AU fic [Do-Over](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16807546), in which Danny became a child. Someone mentioned in comments:
> 
> _I just reread this story, and had the horrifying thought of what if Ward was the five-year-old the next day, but that is almost TOO heart-breaking. Like I can only imagine that the first half hour is just Ward curled up in a ball under the hotel room bed while Danny lies on the floor and talks quietly to him to get him to come out._
> 
> ... so I decided to write it. [Originally posted on Tumblr.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/182700998533/er-so-first-of-all-i-posted-a-de-aging-fic-for)

Seeing Ward as a small child was almost too strange. Danny didn't remember him like this at all. Their five-year age difference had loomed impossibly huge in their shared childhood; his earliest memories of Ward were of the other boy being so much bigger that he might as well have been a grown-up, a source of both torment and protection, fear and comfort. Danny had been scared of him and admired him in equal measure.

It was an extremely disconcerting perspective shift to suddenly be the bigger one, the older one; it was hard to see Ward as a little kid and not see a ghost of the adult Ward superimposed over it, like looking at childhood photos of your parents.

Not that Danny had seen much of him yet, since Ward had been curled up under the bed for most of the last hour. He wasn't crying -- in a way, Danny thought it would have been less worrying if he _was_ crying. At least it would have been more normal five-year-old behavior. Instead he was just curled up shivering. Ward's adult memories weren't something that Danny would wish on his worst enemy, let alone on a little kid.

Danny had given up on talking (much) and just decided to lie on the carpet next to the bed, with one hand stretched out underneath it and his hand on Ward's pointy little shoulder.

"You want to come out and have something to eat?" he asked. "There's a place down the street that has desserts and stuff. Ice cream. You wanna go have ice cream?"

Ward shook his head. Okay, Danny thought, a five-year-old turning down ice cream was a really bad sign.

He rolled over on his side and discovered that Ward was watching him, a flash of light-colored eyes in the darkness under the bed. Was Ward _scared_ of him? he wondered. 

There was no Hell in the Buddhist afterlife, and Danny wasn’t even sure what his own religious beliefs were exactly anyway (it was sort of a mishmash of all the various cultural influences in his life), but if reincarnation and karma actually did exist, he hoped Harold was currently reincarnating as an endless series of mosquitoes and getting smashed every single time. A few thousand years of that ought to be about right. After that, maybe Harold could graduate to rice weevils or something, and work his way up from there for the next few million years.

"I can also call down to the front desk and have them bring ice cream to our room," Danny said, pillowing his cheek on his arm. "There won't be as many choices, but I bet I could have some vanilla ice cream brought up. Vanilla with chocolate sprinkles, that was your favorite, right?"

He just wanted to drag Ward out from under the bed and hug the stuffing out of him, but he also knew that would be the worst thing he could possibly do. A Harold kind of thing to do ... well, minus the hugging, probably. The only thing he _could_ do was try to show Ward that he wasn't that kind of adult.

"So I'm gonna go do that, okay? I'm just going over to the phone."

He made the call sitting on the floor where Ward could see him. He wasn't sure whether that actually was important, but it felt important. After that, Danny lay on the carpet again.

"Hey, Ward, do you want to see a picture of your sister?"

He thumbed through pictures on his phone until he found one of Joy. He didn't have very many of her due to ... well ... circumstances, but he did have a couple from last year, during that ever-so-brief period when they'd been speaking to each other and it had seemed, for awhile, that things were going to be okay.

"She's just a baby for you now, right? This is what she looks like when she grows up."

He turned the phone screen so Ward could see it. After a little while, Ward uncoiled somewhat and scootched over so he could see the screen better.

"Here's another," Danny said, flipping to a new one. This was Joy at her desk at Rand, giving him an exasperated look as he'd peeked into her office to take a quick picture of her to use as his phone photo for her. (He'd just discovered that you could set a picture to go with someone's phone number in a smartphone address book. He remembered being delighted about that.)

In a very tiny voice, not much more than a whisper, Ward asked, "Do you have any pictures of me?"

"Sure I do." Lots more than Joy, fortunately. Danny flicked to the recent ones. "Here, you're in most of these." Generally either ignoring him, or giving the camera (and by extension, Danny) assorted variations on his sardonic "why me?" expression while Danny took pictures of temples and markets and parks that also just happened to have Ward in them.

There was a knock at the door. Ward retreated back under the bed. "It's just the hotel people bringing us our ice cream," Danny said, and he passed the phone under the bed where Ward could keep looking through photos while he went to answer it.

He had to hand it to the hotel's restaurant: they'd done a nice job. Danny came back with two glass bowls, each with a heaping scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate shavings and a strawberry on each one. He set one down on the carpet and held the other. "It's gonna melt," he said, dipping his spoon into his. "I can put yours in the room fridge if you want it later instead."

There was a short hesitation and then Ward cautiously crawled out from under the bed, with the phone clutched in one of his hands. "That's me?" he said dubiously, showing the screen to Danny.

Danny was aware that he had no particular talent for photography, so it was a little bit off center and crooked, but it was actually a nice picture of Ward, sitting on a low stone wall with a sweeping vista of gardens and jungle behind him and a sketchbook in his lap.

"Yeah," Danny said, grinning at him. "That's you."

"I'm drawing?" Ward said, and frowned. "I'm drawing," he said again, thinking his way through it.

Danny remembered that part of what this was like: everything was overwhelming, and you got the most intense memories first and hardest (which had to be part of what was giving Ward such a rough time). But putting things in order or remembering anything specific was the hard part.

"Yeah! You like to draw. You're really good at it, too. Here, I'll show you."

He hopped up and got the sketchbook, which was stuck in the top of Ward's luggage, where it usually was. Danny also got out a box of Ward’s colored pencils. He figured it was Ward's sketchbook and Ward had an equal right to draw in it when he was five as he did when he was thirty.

When he came back, Ward had the enormous bowl of ice cream in his lap and a spoon stuffed in his mouth. He glared at Danny as if daring him to make something out of it.

It was really weird how much like his adult self he still was at this age. In a way, Danny thought, that was probably what had gotten him through all those years of Harold's abuse. Ward had a rock-solid core of, well, of _Ward_ : prickly and angry and sarcastic and stubborn. It made him a real dick sometimes, and it certainly had when they were kids, but it had also kept him from being completely steamrolled by Harold, over the years. Danny felt a sudden intense wash of ... just, _feelings_ : love and admiration and the intense desire to kick Harold's ass around the astral plane for awhile. Luckily Ward was looking at the sketchbook rather than at Danny's face, because hiding his feelings was something Danny really wasn't good at.

"See, here," Danny said, opening the sketchbook up randomly to a drawing of a temple carving. "You're really good at this. Here you go." He put the pencils next to it. "You can draw in it, if you want."

Ward touched the page hesitantly, then jerked his hand away when he noticed he'd left a smear of melted chocolate on the drawing. "I'll mess it up," he said in a voice that sounded small and fragile.

"No, you won't. It's yours. Anyway, it's already gotten wet and had coffee spilled on it and got trampled by a bunch of goats in Cambodia." Danny flipped to a fresh page and showed Ward a coffee ring on top of a half-finished sketch of Danny. "See? You can't do anything bad to it."

Ward shoved the spoon into his mouth, and said around it, indistinctly, "I'm bad at it. Dad said --"

"Your dad's not here," Danny said, more fiercely than he intended, and Ward quailed from the anger in his voice. Damn it. He gentled his tone down and got himself under control. It turned out that dealing with a traumatized five-year-old was better training at emotional control than anything the elders in K'un-Lun had ever come up with. "Look," he said gently. "You're awesome at it. At least, I think so, and I'm the only adult around here, so I must be right. Right?"

Ward looked like he was extremely doubtful about this logic, but he also had the ice cream spoon in his mouth again.

Danny flipped the sketchbook to a blank page and shook out the box of pencils in a heap next to it, noticing Ward's eyes following them covetously. Then he dug into his own bowl of ice cream.

After a little while, with the ice cream in his bowl mostly gone, Ward picked up a pencil.

Danny leaned back against the side of the bed and pretended to be interested in his ice cream and only his ice cream, and not at all in the slow relaxing of Ward's rigid little body as he got interested in the drawing. It worked that way for adult Ward as well, which had given Danny an extremely unpleasant (but plausible) theory that Harold had made him stop because it was something that made him happy that Harold didn't have control over; it was something that Harold could neither understand nor use to control him, and therefore it had to go.

Danny clenched the fist that had once been the Iron Fist until the metal handle of the ice cream spoon actually bent. Carefully, he pried his fingers off it and flexed his hand until the purplish imprint of the spoon handle had faded, and then went back to eating.

When he'd finished his ice cream, Danny picked up his phone and pretended to be absorbed in it, while keeping a subtle eye on Ward, who was now completely absorbed in his drawing. 

And a little while after that, without saying anything, Ward picked up the sketchbook and his pencils, and crawled into Danny's lap, and spread the sketchbook on the floor and -- sprawling half in and half out of Danny’s lap -- went back to drawing in it.


	13. Danny & Colleen making brownies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a Tumblr request for _soft or hurt/comfort with ironwing_. I went with soft. [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/182753593023/hardly-a-prompt-since-i-dont-have-a-specific-idea)

"You can make brownies in the microwave?!"

Colleen could almost see the hearts in Danny's eyes.

"Sure, you just ..." She tore open the packet and emptied it into a mug. "... mix in some water and put it in for how long it says -- and no longer!" she added with a quick grin, because early on they had had a few of what were later referred to as Microwave Incidents; Danny hadn't used a microwave since he was ten, and cooking on hot rocks was a considerably different and slower process. Luckily he was rich enough to replace a microwave after he set it on fire. (There had been three. So far.)

Danny grinned back -- one thing she loved about him, would never stop loving about him, was the way he wasn't afraid to laugh at himself. "Gotta tell you, the modern world has some pretty cool stuff in it. We can get more of these, right?"

She had to laugh. "Danny, you could afford to buy the entire microwave brownie factory."

He ducked his head, looking slightly embarrassed. "I think another couple boxes would do. Or ... do they come in cases, you think?"

So after that, one-serving microwave brownies were a staple of the Wing-Rand kitchen. As well as just being nice to have around in general, especially on cold days, they were a quick source of calories for the inevitable chi depletion. 

(Even if they vanished so quickly that Colleen was pretty sure Danny couldn't possibly be managing to eat them all; this was confirmed when she walked in on Jessica Jones in the kitchen with her spoon stuck in a mug and a look on her face that dared anyone to say anything about it.)

(Colleen was also pretty sure the door had been locked but she wasn't going to say anything about that either.)


	14. Danny Rand vs. autocorrect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a commentfest prompt: _Any fandom, any, Damn you, autocorrect._ [Originally posted here.](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/142463.html?thread=6197631#cmt6197631)

Jessica is standing with her arms over her head, holding up a steel girder, when her phone vibrates in her hip pocket. "God," she groans, because _of course_ the stupid client who owes her a week's fees and has been avoiding her for days _would_ call her back at this exact moment.

Luke is busy securing the other end of the girder so she can let go (construction accident, just another day in the life) but Danny's not doing much of anything useful now that all the workers have been moved to safety, so she snaps at him, "Get my phone, would you? If it's a text from Bill Salyers, tell me if he's _finally_ trying to set up an appointment."

"Um," Danny says, trying not to stare at her ass, where the phone is currently located. "Do you want me to --"

Jessica rolls her eyes so hard they are in danger of falling out of her head. "I'm giving you permission, just tell me what it says."

"It's just, I'd rather not have you hit me, because you hit really hard." Danny retrieves the phone very politely (touching nothing except the phone; she's reluctantly impressed) and then makes a small strangled noise.

"What?" Jessica demands over her shoulder.

"Um," he says again, and holds it up where she can see it. "I'm not sure if I should be looking at this, honestly."

The text is from Trish, and it reads, _"Do you know a Bill Salyers? He's been balling me all day. DO SOMETHING JESS."_

Well, that would explain why Danny is currently bright pink. Jessica stares at that for a minute. Did she give Salyers Trish's number instead? That would explain a lot and is also a good demonstration of why she needs to stop sending drunken emails.

Another text comes in a minute later: _"CALLING CALLING I MEANT CALLING. damn you autocorrect"._

"Oh," Danny says, looking relieved. "Okay. That makes more sense."

"For God's sake, just tell her to give him my number and have him call me. And tell Luke I want to put this beam down sometime this century!" she yells down the girder. "I'm strong, not made of rock. And I have to pee!"

Danny meanwhile is typing on her phone and then tucks it neatly into her pocket (jacket this time, not rear jeans pocket) before going to help Luke. It's not until Jessica manages to get out from under the girder, FINALLY, that she gets a chance to look at her phone and finds out that Danny texted back: _"Sry for wrong # but happy you're having fun! 😊👍😱 give him my # when u get a chance plz"_

Trish: _Jess are you drunk._

She's gonna murder him.


	15. Ward and Foggy commiserating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For this delightful prompt on Tumblr: _have you seen the pictures of Charlie Cox and Finn Jones on their global press tour that looks like Danny and Matt are on vacation and Danny is making Matt do the whole tourist thing everywhere they go? And maybe those are what he sends home to Foggy and to be like "Off having fun! Hold down NYC while we're gone!" Because I feel like there's a fic in there. Which is probably not a prompt, but I need floof Iron Fist/Daredevil cross over fic._
> 
> [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/184175245788/ooorrhave-you-seen-the-pictures-of-charlie-cox)

Ward is in the middle of redoing a complicated set of budget spreadsheets when there's a throat-clearing noise and a tentative tap at his office door.

Katie wouldn't knock, and the number of people she'd let through without contacting him first is a very small list, but still, the person he sees when he looks up is Foggy Nelson, which is a) not at all what he was expecting, and b) probably not a good sign.

Foggy clears his throat again, and says, "Hi. I got a text a little earlier ..."

"From Danny? I'm going to guess I got the same one," Ward says.

"Really?"

Ward wordlessly holds up his phone. There's a picture of Danny and Matt on a beach somewhere. Matt is wearing dark glasses and a dark T-shirt and looks like he wants to be anywhere else. Danny is honest-to-god making the V-for-victory bunny ears behind Matt's head.

"Yeah," Foggy says. "That."

"Welcome to the wide and wonderful world of road-tripping with my brother," Ward says, tapping a stack of papers to neatly align the top edge as Foggy cautiously slips into his office. "One minute you're just innocently trying to stop him from leaving town and making the biggest mistake of his life, and the next time you look around, you're in Kuala Lumpur stealing magic guns and thinking, how is this my life now? So yeah, I hope Murdock is having fun and the next text he sends you isn't from jail."

Foggy perches on the edge of the chair in front of Ward's desk. "Did you, er ... end up in jail? Asking hypothetically. For a friend."

"Six times," Ward says, with resigned gloom. "No wait, seven. Or are we counting military police and cultists? Anyway, yeah. It's a thing."

"They look like they're having fun in the picture, though?"

They both look down at it. "One of them clearly is," Ward says.

"No, that is actually what Matt looks like when he's having fun," Foggy says. Ward gives him a look. "I know! It's true, though. I think he feels guilty about it."

Ward has to grin, because there _is_ something a bit familiar about Murdock's resigned expression -- and as much as he's glad that someone else is getting the entire Danny Rand Travel Experience(TM) this time, he's also a little bit jealous. Or at least, he misses it. Kinda. Not the entire "getting chased by murderous cultists every other week, and twice on Tuesdays" part of the experience, but still, Danny is a pretty cool person to run around the world with, not that he'd admit it.

And it is, maybe, getting a little bit back in touch with that person -- the person who traveled the world with Danny and enjoyed it -- that makes him say, "Hey, I gotta finish this, but you want to meet after work? I can warn you about a few things your buddy is going to want to watch out for when he's traveling with Danny. Dangerous cultists being first and foremost."

"Matt tends to attract those too," Foggy says, grimacing.

"Oh good, they're doomed."

"But yeah," Foggy adds, "yeah, for sure -- you know where Josie's is?"

"I'll do Starbuck's," Ward says, and at Foggy's puzzled look, "I don't drink. Recovering alcoholic."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure! Meet you at six?"

"Yeah," Ward says, and makes a motion toward the door, and Foggy slips off again. Ward has to shake his head at himself: arranging playdates with other (alleged) superheroes' (so-called) sidekicks. Well, at least they have some of the same problems.

He realizes he never answered the text earlier, so he texts back, _I see you're being a bad influence on yet another innocent person. Foggy Nelson was in here earlier, by the way. We're having coffee later to complain about you. Don't break Murdock._

He's not expecting an immediate response, but he gets one. _Wish you were here, Ward._

 _Yeah,_ Ward texts back with a resigned grin. _Me too._


	16. Ward meets Foggy while Danny & Matt are ninjaing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt: _Can I suggest a prompt where Danny and Matt are basically ninja bros and Ward and Foggy are being badass support team bros trying to be serious while their ninja counterparts are trying their best not to break things and failing miserably?_
> 
> [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/185058231028/if-you-think-i-am-going-to-pass-up-a-fic-fall-for)

It's Chinatown on the edge of Little Italy, it's 3 a.m., and Foggy is at the back door of a restaurant carrying a bag with a change of clothes for Matt when he almost runs into someone similarly skulking around.

"Franklin Nelson?" the shadowy figure whispers, and Foggy drops out of the half-assed self-defense stance he'd tried to fall into (Matt's been trying to teach him a few things; he's afraid all he's ended up with is more of a desperate urge to cover his vital areas with both hands). He takes a closer look and realizes that despite the hood pulled up over the newcomer's head, he knows this guy; he's certainly seen him on TV enough.

"Ward Meachum?" he says in disbelief, and goes through a brief mental flowchart of possible reasons why one of New York's corporate elite 1%-ers is hanging around a delivery door in the middle of the night wearing a dark hoodie and carrying a duffel. ("Buying drugs" is at the top of the list.) Then, as Foggy bends down nervously to pick up the backpack he dropped while trying to remember the various self-defense poses Matt tried to teach him, he figures it out.

... because right, Ward is Danny's brother; Foggy sort of knew that, and he's even met Ward a couple of times at Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz corporate functions now that the firm is representing the Rand Corp. They just never really talked, and he kinda never put two and two together until now. Actually, he wasn't ever sure if Ward knew what Danny got up to, and it wasn't like he was going to ask.

"I'd ask what you're doing here," Ward whispers in a tone so dry it could strip paint. "Except it's fairly obvious."

"Yeah. Same." Foggy takes in Ward's skulking-around outfit, a dark charcoal-colored hoodie and black jeans. It's annoyingly stylish. Foggy, on the other hand, is wearing a ragged Columbia University hoodie and a Yankees cap, and he can't believe this guy is making him feel dressed down when they're both dressed like teenagers trying to avoid their parents while sneaking out after curfew.

Ward clears his throat, and Foggy realizes all of a sudden that Ward looks even more nervous, embarrassed, and out of place than Foggy feels. "So, are you going in, or --"

"Right. Yeah." Foggy reaches for the door and punches in the code on the keypad that Matt gave him. The door whirrs and unlocks, and as Foggy holds it open, he adds, "I go by Foggy, by the way. Franklin's just the name on the door of my office."

Ward grunts, and Foggy lets the door fall shut behind them. They're in the sort of hallway where (in Foggy's experience) ninjas or drug dealers tend to attack you, lit only by the faint flickering of a dying fluorescent bulb. Can Matt pick 'em or can he pick 'em, Foggy thinks, noticing that Ward looks nervous too, as the two of them head up the stairs into the restaurant's back room.

"You're an idiot," Ward says, and throws the duffel at Danny, whose clothes have been ripped to rags and look like they might have been partly burnt at some point. At least he's not covered in blood the way Matt is.

"Hi, Foggy," Matt says from the sagging couch opposite Danny, before Foggy has a chance to say anything. "Thanks."

"Yeah, well." Foggy passes him the backpack, and Matt starts pulling items out of it. "I brought some basic first-aid stuff, but do you, uh -- need a hospital? Or Claire?"

"No, I'm okay. Danny healed me."

"Goddammit it." Ward is sitting on the arm of Danny's couch. "I hate living a life where people just _say_ things like that."

"Oh hey, I'm Danny, by the way," Danny says to Foggy, sounding exhausted but cheerful. "I think we've met, maybe?"

"Yeah, a couple of times." One of which was at the 29th Precinct after Midland Circle, a time in his life that Foggy has no intention of thinking about ever again.

"And you're Daredevil, I'm guessing," Ward says to Matt, while leaning down to give Danny a hand getting into a T-shirt from the duffel of clean clothes.

"Danny," Matt says, as ominously as he can when he's half naked, covered in blood, and has a sweatshirt halfway over his head.

"You were dead at the time! I had to tell a few people why I was out half the night and kept coming back covered in bruises -- _ow_ , Ward --"

Foggy turns away; thinking about that year ties his stomach into knots. 

"Foggy," Matt says quietly, and he still forgets, he always forgets the way that Matt can read position and heartbeat and, God only knows, skin temperature and whatever else to figure out people's emotional state. It's really not fair, and he thinks that if Matt apologizes to him, Foggy really might punch him. But instead, all Matt says is, "Thanks, man."

"Yeah, I love coming out three hours before I have to get up just to bring you pants," Foggy says, and Matt grins, and they're going to be okay; they're getting there.

"So did anyone but me bring a car?" Ward asks from the arm of Danny's couch. "Okay, yeah. That's what I thought."

And so they end up in Ward's car. Foggy is expecting a Bugatti or something, and it's a little bit anticlimactic when it's a pretty ordinary-ish Lexus -- a _nice_ Lexus, but not like a "I had to sell my private island to pay for this car" kind of car. Foggy deposits Matt in the backseat, and Ward is handling Danny, whose legs don't quite seem to be working right. Ward stuffs him into the backseat with Matt, and Foggy claims shotgun.

"Ordinary night?" Foggy says to Ward, who rolls his eyes and gives a halfway grin, and huh, just like that, Foggy is apparently now on a friendly terms with not just one but two billionaires (although one is Danny and therefore doesn't really count). It's a weird frikking world.


	17. Danny gets his adult memories in K'un Lun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Danny in K'un Lun, adult memories in child's body._ (Brilliantly, I didn't note down where this prompt was from, though I think it was probably a commentfic fest on DW.)

Danny was balanced barefoot on a fence rail, holding a rock above his head along with a half dozen other young disciples -- mind-numbingly bored, staring into the distance and trying to think of nothing like Master Lei Kung said, although what he was actually thinking about at the moment was Pokémon.

Then he let out a startled yelp, dropped the rock on his head, and fell off the fence.

*

He woke up with a splitting headache and Davos frowning down at him.

"Well, I have to hand it to you, Danny, you found a novel way to get us out of training this afternoon," Davos remarked. 

"Ow," Danny said weakly. He groped at his head, where he found a wet cloth folded over an extremely painful lump just under the hairline.

Davos smacked his hand away. "If you make yourself start bleeding again, you'll make a mess and I'll get punished, because I'm supposed to be watching you. So stop it."

Danny tried to sit up anyway, but fell back even before Davos pushed him down. He was lying in the shade, he found when he turned his head painfully to the side, at the edge of the courtyard. Someone had moved him onto a mat. Davos was sitting next to him, with his arms thrown over his knees and his dusty bare feet tucked up under him.

As Danny's throbbing head began to clear, a mixed-up tangle of thoughts surfaced. 

"I'm going to be the Iron Fist," he said faintly.

"So you keep saying," Davos said, with great patience. "To anyone who'll listen."

"No ... I ..." It was all a mess in his head; he couldn't sort it out. "I'm going to be the Iron Fist, and you'll _hate_ me for it, and I -- and I --" His eyes flew wide open. "Uncle Harold!"

"Will you just stay still?" Davos demanded, holding him down as Danny thrashed to get up. "Stop it!"

"Uncle Harold killed my parents!" It came out in a plaintive wail. The fight went out of him; he slumped on the mat, caught in the grip of emotions too big to deal with.

Davos let go when it became clear that he wasn't going anywhere. "I thought your parents died in an accident," he said cautiously. "The accident that brought you here."

"No ... that's what I thought, but he ... he made it look like an accident." His chest heaved. He couldn't get enough air; he felt like he was drowning in memories, memories of betrayal and despair, memories of another life, an entire life. Impossible memories, memories that couldn't be.

"Hey, calm down." Davos put a hand on his shoulder, and Danny stared up at him, blinking away tears at the memory-that-wasn't -- an older Davos looking at him with hate, trying to hurt him, trying to kill him.

 _Is that the actual future?_ he wondered. He screwed his eyes shut, spilling tears down his cheeks, and tried to make it all stop. There was just too much. He remembered hurting people, killing people. He remembered his friends betraying him, everyone betraying him. He remembered a very pretty girl. Kissing her. Sparring with her, the flex of their bodies, the dragon tattoo on his own chest.

Remembered a grown-up Joy and Ward. Ward pointing a gun at him. Ward grinning at him. Joy trying to have him killed. And _Harold_ ...

He covered his face with his hands. "I have to get out of K'un Lun," he said between his fingers.

"Yeah," Davos said. "You keep saying that too."

"No, I _have_ to. Uncle Harold ..." Was running his parents' company right now. No, was dead of cancer. No, was alive but _wrong,_ malignant, like a cancer himself.

 _You're a cancer, Danny._ Grown-up Ward spitting it at him, the words twisted with anger and hate.

Was all of this really going to happen? Was happening. Had happened. 

He scrubbed his hands across his face, smearing dust and tears, and then sat up very carefully, using one hand to hold the wet cloth in place. Davos steadied him with a hand on his shoulder.

Danny looked at him, seeing adult Davos's look of hate overlaid on the Davos he knew, who looked worried and a little bit exasperated, but not angry. Not hateful.

Danny drew in a slow, shaky breath, and then he said, "You need to be the Iron Fist."

"What?" Davos said. "Well, yes ... I hope so --"

"You're going to be. You're good. You'll get there. I'll help you. And then the way will open --" Not for thirteen more years, if this weird jumble of future memories could be believed. Thirteen long, desperate years, thirteen years in which Harold could do _anything,_ was doing things already: to Ward, to Joy, to the company. Thirteen years in which people he hadn't even met yet were having terrible things happen to them, too. Strangers he suddenly and inexplicably cared about.

"Just how badly did that rock scramble your brains?" Davos asked, leaning forward to poke at his forehead.

Danny pushed his hand away. "Davos, are future memories a thing here? I mean, like, really predicting the future. Is that a thing?"

He was expecting, even hoping, for Davos to laugh at him. Instead Davos looked thoughtful. "Some of the lamas can do it, they say. I don't know for certain."

"Is it something _we're_ going to be able to do, once we get more in tune with our chi and stuff?"

"It's not -- we're not -- that isn't --" Davos took a steadying breath. Then he frowned. "Wait, is that what's going on here? When you hit your head, did you have a vision?"

"Yes!" Danny said eagerly. That wasn't exactly it, but it was close enough; it was something Davos seemed to believe, and that was good enough. "Yes, I did. I saw us all grown up, you and me, and we were the Iron Fist -- wait, I mean --"

"We?" Davos repeated. "You can't have two Iron Fists at once."

But he _had_ seen Davos as the Iron Fist. As well as himself -- felt it, more than saw it, the bright flood of dragonfire under his skin. And he remembered, too, the cold ashes where that brilliant connection had been, the desperate sense of loss. Remembered looking for it, trying to get it back, with Ward beside him -- 

He shook his head, then winced when he remembered why that was a bad idea. "I don't know. I just think ... maybe it's a warning. Or ... something."

What he really wanted to do was go somewhere alone where he could think about this and maybe cry a little bit. His head hurt and his heart felt as bruised as his skull. But privacy was in short supply in K'un Lun. People thought you were weird if you wanted to be by yourself. And he was tired of crying. He wanted to _do_ things. His head was whirling with future memories that might or might not be accurate, but at least he finally had things to do other than pour all his hopes into maybe getting the Iron Fist, maybe having a life here, maybe getting home someday. He _knew_ he was going to get home. He'd seen it. And it was going to be sad and awful in some ways, but at least now he knew what to expect, strange as it was.

"A warning of what?" Davos asked in an exasperated tone, making Danny realize he'd asked it at least once already.

"A warning that maybe I'm not supposed to have the Iron Fist." He flexed his hands and thought about that hot golden flood of power. He wanted it more than ever now that he'd found out what it felt like. But if it was going to make people hunt him and hurt him, if it was going to make Davos and Joy hate him, then he didn't want it after all.

And if Davos had it, then Davos could stay here and guard the pass, and Danny could go to New York.

Thirteen years. Thirteen impossibly long years. It might as well be two hundred. But it would happen. The way would open. He'd get out and get back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It surprised me a little bit to realize that this actually makes things _better_ for Danny than in actual canon. Although, man, now I'm picturing him showing up in New York babbling about Harold being a zombie and dropping in on all his new friends (who have no idea who he is) trying to get them to be a team with him. Somehow I don't think that's going to go any better for him than it did the first time.


	18. Ward & Joy parent-teacher conference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt on DW: _Ward & Joy, Ward at a parent/teacher conference for her after Harold's death_. [Originally posted here.](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1243168.html?thread=18607392#cmt18607392)

Somehow it had never occurred to Ward in all the madness, all the chaos surrounding their father's death -- in the middle of round-the-clock nurses and lawyers and reporters, tangled up in infinitely complicated emotions and the never-ending need to be there for Joy and make sure she ate and make sure Dad's care went as well as it could and just ... just _everything_ ...

... that eventually, when Dad was gone (or as it turned out, not as gone as he'd thought, but dead as far as the world was concerned), _someone_ was going to have to do the everyday, parent things.

Their schedule had been completely upended in every way during the last months of Harold's life. Ward had tested out of his last semester of boarding school so he could be home (there was supposed to be a diploma coming in the mail, something not-Dad had been asking him about every two days, it seemed, like somehow it impacted his ability to run the company or something). And Joy had been pulled out of the local middle school, with private tutors, although in retrospect Ward didn't think there had been much tutoring going on. It just hadn't seemed to matter. They'd had so much else.

And now, it was months after Dad's (sort of) death, and Joy was entering the eighth grade, and Ward, who was still a month out from his eighteenth birthday, had emancipation paperwork in hand, legal custodianship of Joy, and at 17 and 11 months, he was (apparently) the legal adult in the household. The head of Rand Enterprises. Joy's guardian. The local adult ... under Dad's firm hand, except no one but Ward was allowed to know that.

He'd had three short days after Dad's death to breathe. To think. To look ahead, to the uncertain vastness of a future without Dad. And now ... this. Dad's presence was like a fist around his throat, choking the breath out of him but also providing a sort of comfort, a kind of grounding. He'd had that brief time to look ahead and feel the ground dropping out from under his feet, but now he had Dad's guiding hand on the reins once again. All he had to do was what he'd always done: he did what Dad told him, and things worked out, they always did.

Unfortunately Dad wasn't interested in giving him advice about the mundane details of Joy's school enrollment. "You're a man now, son. Don't come crying to me for everything."

So he stayed up late agonizing over the forms, hoping he had everything right and wasn't screwing her over somehow through sheer ignorance. Fortunately this was a school she'd been going to for years, and so it was just a matter of making sure everything was up to date, all the forms were signed, and all the explanations were properly made. He ran into various adults on the school-administrative level who were unsure about a 17-year-old calling the shots on Joy's education, but by now Ward was starting to get used to that kind of thing, and Dad had already given him a path to follow. He threw lawyers at them, then threw money at them (buying a new science lab for the school went a long way toward smoothing things over, he found), and he made it work, made everything work.

In his room late at night (the whole house was his now, technically, but he still couldn't get used to that), he practiced looking adult. Everything was easier if he could pass himself off as an adult in dealing with other adults -- if he learned to set his face in a way that disguised the softness of youth, put on a suit and tie, put on the cold face that made people stop asking questions. He _did_ look over 18 when he practiced it.

He made sure Joy had three meals a day, and made sure the housecleaning service came on time and the other household employees did their jobs, and ticked off boxes on the Adulting checklist in his head. He spent his days at Rand, trying to learn as much as he could, as fast as he could. He'd expected to have several years at business school to get up to speed on all of this. 

("You've turned _mean_ since Dad died," Joy accused him, and then half an hour later she was asking him to help her with her math homework. That was actually kind of fun; with their heads together over the worksheet, it made him think of the days when she'd been younger, when they'd both been younger, when they were Team Ward and Joy, and not ... whatever they were now. He would have thought Dad's death would have brought them closer together, but it seemed to have done the opposite.)

But even that didn't prepare him for Joy coming to him a month into the school year, a few days after his sought-after 18th birthday, and shoving a form at him. 

"What's this?" he asked, turning away from the computer where he was staring at business contract law, and rubbing his aching eyes before he swung the paper around to face him.

"Parent-teacher conference," Joy said, dropping into the kitchen chair across the table. "They, uh. They want." She rubbed at her eyes. "A parent."

Joy still cried a lot, whenever the subject of their dad came up. Ward didn't. He felt as if all the tears had been ground out of him, along with a whole lot of other things. 

"Yeah, sure, okay." The form asked him to pick times from a list. He checked his Blackberry for his schedule, scribbled preferences, and shoved it back over to her.

He genuinely forgot about it 'til finding it on his calendar a few days later. He took a deep breath and told himself it was just another thing that needed to be done. 

And, in truth, it wasn't that bad. He got through it; it was just another meeting with adults. He had his armor on: suit and tie, adult face, giving the right answers to all their questions, falling back on "our dad died last summer" whenever things started drifting in an awkward direction, which always shut people right up.

Outside the school, Joy hugged him. It was always a little bit of a surprise how tall she was getting; he kept expecting her arms to go around his waist, not under his arms, but she was almost adult-tall now.

"Did you get me flunked?" she asked, but she was smiling.

"Yeah, you're going to have to live in a box next to the railroad tracks."

"Jerk," she said, but she hugged him again. It was probably the closest he'd felt to her since Dad's death, the first time they'd really felt in sync. "You did good," she whispered in his ear, and he thrilled to the praise, even when she added as they broke apart, "I don't even remember the last time Dad went to one of those."

"Wait, you can not go?" He'd gotten the impression that it wasn't possible, that the only way to prove yourself a responsible adult was to be there.

... but maybe that didn't apply to people who didn't have to prove it. Dad always seemed to be able to make the rules bend around him. Ward had no idea how he did it. Money was part of it, he knew. But only part. There was something else Dad had that he didn't, charisma or forcefulness or ... something.

Joy shrugged. "The important thing is, you came."

He needed to get back to the office, but instead, he took her out for ice cream. He was going to do this well. He was going to take care of her. He might even do it better than Dad had done it.

(He didn't know, then, that this wasn't possible, because Dad made the rules. If Ward went to every meeting, it was because he was a stickler for rules and didn't know when it was time to skip one; if he skipped one, it was because he'd been too dense to realize it was important.)

But right now Joy was happy, and he'd take that in whatever form he could get it.


	19. Ward & Colleen sparring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DW prompt: _any character, training or sparring._ [Originally posted here.](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1243168.html?thread=18633248#cmt18633248)

"So just exactly how badly are you planning to kick my ass?" Ward asks, rotating slowly in place so he can keep Colleen in sight at all times. "Notice I didn't ask if you were planning to, just --"

"How badly, yes." She smiles, which makes him look even more nervous. Not that she isn't enjoying his discomfort, but ... "Ward, when you're in this room, you're my student and I'm your sensei. No more or no less than that. And I expect from you the same things I expect from any of my students. No more, no less."

She's doing this for Danny, she reminds herself. Danny thinks Ward needs to learn more self-defense than Danny feels qualified to teach him. According to Danny, Ward _did_ learn a few things on their road trip, but he thinks Ward needs a solid grounding in technique and feels that Ward would learn it best from someone who's not him.

So here they are. She tries not to think of how much of a disaster this could be. Bringing those negative thoughts into a training session never ends well.

"So," Ward begins, "does that mean I'm woefully behind the karate curve or what, because I'm going to guess most of your students come in already know how to --"

"Stop," she says, holding up a finger, and to her surprise, he does, although possibly only because he's startled. "One of the rules is that when you're in this room, you will respect me as your sensei. That means, you can ask questions if you need to, but not unnecessary ones. And you will address me as 'sensei.'"

"I'll _what?"_

"You mean, 'I'll what, sensei?'"

"I --" He opens his mouth and then closes it again.

"Good," she says with a smile. "Don't worry, I'll give you the guidance you need. I _have_ done this before. We will begin," she adds, suiting action to words, "with a bow."

"Danny didn't --"

"I think you mean, 'yes, sensei.'" She points. "If you don't like the rules, the door is there."

He looks at her, and then he says, "Yes, sensei," and bows with fairly decent form. Danny did manage to teach him a thing or two, apparently.

He is not actually the most belligerent or resistant student she's ever had -- not by far. She has made a career of working with street kids, after all. Dealing with Ward Meachum is going to be child's play, on that level, at least.

But she hasn't had a student with the kind of history they have between them. Not unless Danny counts, and that was something else entirely.

"The first thing I'm going to do is find out how much you already know. I'm going to take you through what Danny's already taught you. You'll be leading here. I just want you to show me the moves you've practiced with Danny. Got it?"

"Yes, sensei." And there's a hint of something that might almost be a smile -- a challenging smile with an edge to it, but she hopes she can get that out of him in a lesson or two. Maybe.

Because she thinks back to what Danny said to her:

_"It's not just a matter of me teaching him to fight. Because I could teach him that, I think. What you can teach him is something else, and something he desperately needs. Grounding. Calm. Centering. How to deal with his anger."_

_"You know all those things too, Danny," she'd said._

_"But not as well as you do," he'd said, looking at her with that face she'd never learned to resist. "He needs to train with a master. Not a student and fellow seeker, like me."_

We are all seekers, she thinks now, moving by reflex to block Ward's clumsy strike. But she thinks she knows what Danny's really asking for. He thinks it'll be easier for her than for him, because she's not that close to Ward; she can teach him what he needs to know without getting too tangled up. Give him what he needs to get better, which in some cases, as she and Danny both know all too well, is simply a swift kick in the ass.

And, well, maybe she can.

She slides out of his inexpert hold, spins around and throws him. He hits the mat and lays there, staring up at her with a stunned expression.

She holds a hand down to him. "Again," she says simply.

"Really?" he says, staring up at her.

"I think you mean, 'Yes, sensei.'"

There's a long moment when she can sense (based on her experience with teenagers, which suddenly he reminds her of) all the sarcastic responses on the tip of his tongue. Then he says, "Yes, sensei," and clasps her hand, and as she pulls him to his feet, she thinks this might not be a total disaster.


	20. Harold stabs Ward AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the diabolically lovely Tumblr prompt: _Harold does much worse than hug Ward when he comes back the second time, and it's not Harold's blood Danny finds the next day, but his son. Not moving. (Please keep him alive though. Maybe take him to the dojo...?)_
> 
> [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/186572645828/hi-there-prompt-ward-danny-colleen)

"I think I owe you something, Ward," his father said quietly, and Ward's shocked brain caught up with what was happening just in time to see the knife coming at him.

*

He didn't remember, after, exactly how he got out. He remembered the fight only in vague snatches, the knife and the blood and Harold's fists. Harold was stronger, bigger, but Ward was frantic and terrified. He remembered hitting Harold in the face with a paperweight off the desk -- was that when he'd escaped, or later? He wasn't sure; he found himself on the sidewalk, covered in blood, with no memory of fleeing the building.

He didn't know where to go. He didn't know if Harold was dead, again; he didn't know if Harold _could_ be killed.

He had to go somewhere. He started walking; stumbling, rather. At least it was night, and the sidewalks were nearly deserted. Someone, sooner or later, was going to notice and call the police. That would be good, right? The cops?

Yeah ... try explaining that his undead dad (who he'd already murdered once) had tried to kill him. That'd go well.

Hospital, he thought vaguely, pressing a hand to his side. His shirt was soaked with blood. But the Hand ... would the Hand find him? Silence him to stop him talking about Harold?

He didn't know where to go. Didn't know where was safe. In the end, he wasn't sure why his footsteps took him where they took him. But that was where he went.

*

"And you think your place will be safer than either of ours ... _why?"_ Claire wanted to know.

They were all three jet-lagged and exhausted. The trip to China had been a total washout; they'd fought the Hand, but all of them got away. Now here they were back in New York, no wiser and no closer to the answers they were hoping for.

"It's a secure building. Jeri's firm rents it. At least we can rest tonight and ..." Danny dragged a hand through his hair. "... figure things out in the morning, I guess."

"Joy got attacked at your place," Colleen pointed out.

"That was the triads, not the Hand. I guess ..." Danny shrugged. "It's closer? We can go to the dojo if you'd rather. I think one of us should stay with Claire to protect her, though."

"You two are the reason I'm in trouble in the first place," Claire sighed. "Look, I don't care, I just want somewhere to sleep that's not on an airplane."

This pragmatic attitude lasted until they reached the elevator in Danny's building. There was a long smear of blood from the buttons and down, as if someone had hit a button and left a streak of blood behind.

"... you can say I told you so," Danny said, staring at it.

Colleen drew her katana. "Who has the security codes to get into your building?"

"Jeri probably does. And, uh, I gave them to Joy and Ward too."

"Joy and Ward," Colleen said. "Who tried to have you killed and locked you up in a mental hospital."

"That was then," Danny retorted, but he was all too aware that the last time he'd seen Ward, Ward had accused him of getting Harold killed.

_You're a cancer, Danny ..._

Would Ward have sold him out to the Hand? He didn't want to believe it. But _he'd_ been doing all kinds of desperate things because of his parents' deaths; who knew what Harold's death could have pushed Ward to?

There was more blood in the elevator, more in the hall, and the door to Danny's apartment stood slightly ajar.

"Stay back," Colleen murmured to Claire, who needed no urging.

Danny stepped inside first, flicking on the lights, his fist clenched but not lit up (yet). The apartment looked like it had the last time he'd seen it -- at least, it wasn't trashed -- but the light-colored carpet was streaked with blood, actual bloody _footprints_. And in front of the couch --

"Ward!"

Danny crouched beside him, vaguely aware of Colleen going through the rest of the apartment with her sword at the ready. Ward was slumped on the floor, like he'd just collapsed when his body had given out, and there was blood all over him, soaking his shirt and suit jacket. When Danny cautiously turned Ward's head to feel for a pulse, he saw bruises and more blood. Ward was chalk white, and cold to the touch, but he was breathing. His pulse was light and fast.

Danny crouched beside him, vaguely aware of Colleen going through the rest of the apartment with her sword at the ready. Ward was slumped on the floor, like he'd just collapsed when his body had given out, and there was blood all over him, soaking his shirt and suit jacket. When Danny cautiously turned Ward's head to feel for a pulse, he saw bruises and more blood. Ward was chalk white, and cold to the touch, but he was breathing. His pulse was light and fast.

"Ward?"

Ward moaned faintly; his eyelids fluttered, but he didn't wake up all the way.

"Good God," Claire murmured, kneeling beside them.

"The apartment's clear," Colleen reported. She shut the door and locked it. "It looks like he's the only one here, but I don’t think he was attacked here. There's no sign of a fight and no blood anywhere else in your place."

"He came here looking for me." Danny kept his hand on Ward's face. His chest was twisted up in a confusing tangle of feelings. There had been almost nothing between them except fighting since he got back to New York, and yet, Ward had come looking for him when he was hurt ...

"He needs a hospital," Claire said, briskly shouldering him out of the way. "I suppose you're both going to tell me we shouldn't take him to one."

Danny and Colleen shared a look. "If this was the Hand, we shouldn't," Colleen said. "And I can't think who else it could have been, unless -- does Ward have other enemies, Danny?"

"I don't know." Danny found that he'd taken Ward's cold, bloody hand. They'd been close, once. There had been times when he'd hoped they could be again. But they never would be, if Ward died ... "Claire, do you think you can help him?"

"Well, not with you two sitting there like two lumps and not _helping me._ Let me see how badly he's hurt. I need first-aid supplies, if you have any. Blankets. Towels. Warm water."

They scrambled to obey. When Danny came back with a large bowl of steaming water and a bundle of towels and washcloths, he found that Claire had Ward's shirt off and Colleen was helping wrap blankets around him. Claire nodded to him and dipped a cloth into the bowl. She began spongeing the blood off Ward's torso. He was semiconscious, occasionally making weak moves to fend her off, but definitely not coherent.

"I think it's mostly superficial. Defensive wounds, for the most part." Claire turned Ward's arm over with firm but gentle hands, and Danny leaned forward to help wash the blood away from the shallow cuts on his forearm. "We see these a lot in the ER. Someone tried to stab him and he fought back. They got in a couple of cuts over the ribs, but there's nothing life-threatening. He's lost a lot of blood, though."

"This doesn't seem like the Hand," Colleen said quietly. "If they wanted him dead, he'd be dead."

"I think she's right," Claire said, turning Ward's head to mop at blood in his hair. "This is more like a crime of passion. Like he really pissed somebody off."

Colleen's smile was more like a grimace. "Okay, so our list of suspects is everyone he's ever talked to. That narrows it down."

The bruises on Ward's face stood out vividly against the pale skin. He flinched with a moan, jerking away from them, but relaxed slightly when Danny took his hand again.

"So he'll be okay without a hospital?" Danny asked anxiously. "Or should we take him to one?"

"I think he'll be okay. The bleeding's almost stopped, and I think he's stable for now. Let's just wrap him up and keep him warm." Claire sighed and leaned an elbow on the couch, wiping hair out of her eyes with the back of her blood-stained hand. "What is _with_ you two? Why can we never go twenty-four hours without a crisis?"

"Thank you, Claire," Danny said sincerely.

"Ugh. Don't thank me. Just _please,_ can you people stop getting shot and stabbed and ... everything." She got to her feet. "I don't suppose there's anything to drink in here."

"Bunch of expensive alcohol and stuff on the sideboard there." Danny gestured with his head. He didn't really want to let go of Ward's hand; it seemed to be calming him down. "No decent tea though."

"I don't care," Claire declared. She wiped her hands on a towel. "As soon as I get all the bloodborne pathogens off me, I'm having a drink. Colleen?"

"Yes, please," Colleen said fervently.

Danny gathered up the towels and poured the bloody water down the sink drain, then came back to sit next to Ward. Wrapped up in blankets, he seemed to be asleep. Danny laid a hand lightly on his shoulder.

"Who did this to you?" he murmured, and Ward flinched in his sleep, as if in the grip of a nightmare.


	21. Danny gets turned invisible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For this amazing Tumblr prompt, which is making me grin just typing this: _How about either Danny or Ward being turned invisible and stuck that way (for a while)?_ [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/186738987163/happy-birthday-prompt-hm-how-about-either-danny)

"You know what? I think this might be the most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to us. And considering that our lives include things like stealing magic guns from gangsters, being attacked by ninjas, and undead patricide, that is saying _a lot."_

"Come on, Ward, that attitude isn't helping." Danny's voice came from over by the room's kitchenette, this time, which wasn't where Ward had thought he was, but at least it was better than Danny turning up randomly three inches from his ear and making him almost jump out of his skin.

"Oh really? You know what would help would be if you'd stop _pacing_ so I can stop finding out thirty seconds too late that I've been talking to empty air like an idiot."

"Pacing helps me think." This from over by the window.

"Oh?" Ward said, turning toward the window, though with his luck Danny was probably in the bathroom now, or halfway out the door. "Coming up with all kinds of brilliant ideas, then, are you?"

"I think it might be a matter of pressure points," Danny said, sounding frustrated. "It's really hard to find the right places, though, when I can't see my hands or any other part of me. Have you found anything on the Internet?"

"Call me crazy here," Ward said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, "but I don't think Google is going to be much help with our current issue. 'I accidentally turned myself invisible with chi while trying to get my fist to light up and I can't turn visible again' is not getting me a ton of hits."

His irritation blew right past Danny, as usual. Instead Danny said thoughtfully, "We might have to call Colleen."

Ward's initial reaction was _oh fuck no._ He would rather endure an entire month of Danny trying to teach him meditation than explain to Colleen that Danny had accidentally turned himself invisible. On the other hand, talking to Colleen was probably preferable to finding out how Danny needing to eat was going to interact with invisibility. Or Danny taking a shower. Or ever talking to anyone but Ward ever again ...

"Okay, fine. But _you_ get to explain this to her."


	22. Danny meets S1-era Frank Castle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: _Danny "let's make friends" Rand meets S1 Punisher :D_ [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/186811740098/danny-lets-make-friends-rand-meets-s1-punisher) (This is a slight AU of Punisher 1x04 and relies pretty heavily on having seen the episode. Set between seasons of Iron Fist.)

The van slammed into Madani's car, and it went tumbling sideways, and Frank was already stomping on the brakes, already thinking he was going to _kill_ Lieberman, goddammit -- she was a cop, she was doing her job, this ... wasn't how he'd meant this to go, fuck, fuck, _fuck._ He stormed over to the van, where Lieberman had skidded to a halt and looked like he’d figured out that things had gone pretty far sideways, now that it was too fucking late, thanks a lot you _idiot._

"What do you think you're doing?" he snapped at Lieberman, and then he turned around and discovered that some _other_ idiot wearing a hoodie was dragging Madani out of her flaming car. Fucking hell, _now what._ Gang member? Gun runner? He had to go get her away from this new son-of-a-bitch before she got perforated.

"Go home!" he snapped at Lieberman, and drew a pistol as he strode over to stop whatever was about to happen to Madani.

The guy in the hoodie looked up, and he was wearing a scarf over the lower half of his face, so nothing at all suspicious about _that._ "Her foot's trapped," he said matter-of-factly, just like Frank wasn't holding a gun that could be pointing at him between one heartbeat and the next. "Lift up the seat, right there, would you?"

Between the two of them, they hauled Madani out of the flaming wreckage of her car. Frank glanced over to see that Lieberman had, thankfully, taken Frank's advice-slash-order and gotten the fuck out of there.

"You people are gonna get hurt, drag-racing late at night like this," the stranger said earnestly. He had a young-sounding voice. Some idiot kid, Frank thought, who had been, what, holding up a liquor store or something, and came out at the sound of the car accident to help? Hell of a place, this city.

"Thanks for the advice," Frank growled as he laid Madani out on the sidewalk.

"She looks pretty badly hurt." With that, the kid just up and pulled off his hoodie. He had curly blond hair and a T-shirt underneath. He started to lay the sweatshirt over Madani, but Frank snatched it out of his hands. "So," the kid began, "do you want me to call an ambulance, or --"

"I got this," Frank snapped. "Get out of here and forget you saw anything."

The kid hesitated, but Frank ignored him and laid the hoodie, still warm with body heat, over Madani. And for some reason that made the kid give a little nod. "Okay, but no more drag racing, and I'll be watching!" he said, and parkoured _up the side of a building_ and vanished.

This town, Frank thought. This damned town. Well, at least the odds were good he'd never see _that_ asshole again.

(He was very wrong.)


	23. Ward and karaoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a conversation on Discord about Ward being secretly good at singing and Danny making him go to karaoke. [Originally posted here.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/186951369623/there-was-a-recent-discussion-on-the-iron-fist)

"I can't believe you talked me into this."

"Come on, this isn't the worst thing I've ever talked you into," Danny said, grinning at him, and that was so profoundly, depressingly true that Ward was rendered temporarily speechless.

Karaoke. Un-fucking-believable. He couldn't believe he'd agreed to spend the evening watching other people get drunk, to a backdrop of off-key singing. He'd rather go interrogate some more mobsters.

But Danny seemed to be having fun, and Danny also had absolutely no shame whatsoever about getting up on stage and belting out power ballads. After an hour or so of this, Ward was starting to feel a little bit more ... relaxed, or something, even though he'd just been nursing a Coke. Maybe he was getting a contact high. In any case, the next time Danny came down off the stage and started prodding him about giving it a try, he decided, why the hell not? They'd never see any of these people again, and he'd already made an idiot out of himself in front of Danny enough times that the embarrassment had (mostly) worn off.

The thing was, he actually had liked singing, once. Not like it was something he'd ever do in front of people, but he used to sing to Joy, or to himself, quietly. It was fun. He knew he hadn't been good at it, because Harold had told him so, and also mocked him and told him that singing was something for girls and small children. So he'd stopped.

But Danny looked like he was having fun, and some of the singers onstage had been absolutely terrible, so he couldn't possibly be worse than that, could he?

He almost lost his nerve once he was actually up on the stage. But Danny grinned at him from their table and gave him a double thumbs up, and _great_ , now he was going to disappoint Danny on top of everything else if he gave up. So he found a song he kinda knew how to sing, an old 80s pop song he used to sing to Joy, and gave it a try.

He was a little shaky at first. But he'd also forgotten that singing was actually fun. Especially singing along to music. He could almost lose himself in it, forget where he was, forget that he was probably making a fool out of himself. At the end he felt like he was coming off a mild high. It was a little startling to come down out of the haze and find himself onstage, and then people clapped and he had to escape.

Of course he ran into Danny as he was trying to get off the stage. "Ward, you were amazing," Danny said, his eyes shining. "You can really sing! You're good! You didn't tell me you could sing."

"I can't," Ward muttered. "Get out of my way."

He ended up taking his drink and slinking off to a table in the farthest, darkest corner. Danny disappeared and came back a few minutes later with a couple of slips of paper. "Look at that," he said. "Ward, you just won us some free drink tickets. See? Everybody thinks you're good."

"Yay," Ward said. "Free Coke." 

But he took one, and a little later when Danny wanted to drag him onstage and try a duet, he resisted for a few token seconds and then he thought, what the hell. As long as it wasn't a power ballad.


	24. Danny presumed dead in an explosion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whumptober 2019: Explosion. [ On DW](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1266419.html) | [On Tumblr](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/188092683528/day-2-explosion).
> 
> I wrote fic this year for most of the Whumptober prompts. [Full list of all my prompt fills here](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/188749363023/whumptober-2019), or [just the Iron Fist ones.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/188749417268/whumptober-2019-iron-fist)

The shock wave threw Colleen off her feet, knocking her to the ground. By the time she picked herself up, the entire building was falling inward, crumbling in a wave of heat and noise.

"Danny!" she screamed, throwing an arm across her face against the heat and light. She stumbled forward, only to be brought up short by someone grabbing her jacket, dragging her backwards.

"Colleen --" and that was as far as Ward got before she broke his grip and nearly broke his thumbs along with it.

She made it another three steps forward before he threw his arms around her and tried to bodily drag her backwards. This worked out about as well for him as it had the last time; this time she threw him, landing him flat on the ground, as hard as she'd ever put down a recalcitrant student. He grunted as she landed knee-first on top of him, driving the air out of his lungs.

"And stay down!" she snarled, but all he did was try to grab her wrists. She detached his grasp with a sideward twist that must have come close to dislocating his shoulder. "What do you want? A broken arm?"

"I know what Danny would say to me," he gasped out, getting a grip on her arm again, "if I let you go get yourself killed in there."

He literally couldn't stop her; she could put him on the ground as many times as it took. But she knelt on his chest and stared at him, and slowly the frantic need for motion began to drain away, and in its place a kind of desperate, hollow sorrow swelled to fill her chest.

"Danny," she said helplessly.

"I know," Ward said, and the worst part, the very worst part of all of it was that she knew he meant it; he _did_ know, he understood, like no one else would have. "Can I, uh ... Colleen, I can't really breathe ..."

He was clearly breathing well enough to talk, but she was starting to get a grip on herself now, and she moved her knee and then staggered to her feet, stumbled and went down hard, and sat on the ground. The building continued to burn, and after a moment Ward managed to sit up next to her, and leaned over, rubbing his shoulder.

"He got out," he said after a minute. "It's Danny. He's got nine lives. I mean, how many times was he supposed to be dead by now?"

She wanted to tell him to shut up, but she drew in a hitching breath and then all she could do was sit there, shaking, and eventually she buried her face in her arms.

She wasn't expecting a hand to settle hesitantly between her shoulder blades. All she wanted to do was shrug it off; the last person she wanted here, at a time like this, was Ward Meachum -- and yet, he was also the only person who could possibly know what she was feeling, right down the bones. That raw bloody hole in her chest ... she'd seen the same thing in his eyes, and that was what what made her lean toward him, until her shoulder rested against his, and they just sat there, watching the building burn.

"I'm sorry I almost broke your arm," she said after a little while. Her voice was rough, her throat raw with smoke.

Ward gave a sharp, hoarse laugh. "I had it coming. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't."

She started to answer, but then she was distracted by something moving against the flames.

A moment later, she lurched to her feet, and she was moving forward, and then running, to throw her arms around Danny. He staggered and sagged against her, burying his face in her hair. He stank of smoke and chemicals, and she didn't care, all that mattered was having him here and alive in her arms.

And when Ward stumbled up to them a moment later and hugged him, hugged both of them, Colleen turned wordlessly and put an arm around Ward's waist and just held on there too, while Danny breathed heavily into her hair and she just ... hugged him and hugged him, and didn't want to ever let go.


	25. Ward held at gunpoint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whumptober 2019: Gunpoint. [On DW](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1267665.html) | [On Tumblr](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/188160388883/day-5-gunpoint).

The gun ground into the back of Ward's skull. He clenched his teeth and took one step at a time, inching forward into the vast space of the empty warehouse.

"Iron Fist!" his captor snapped. "Show yourself!"

"Yeah," Ward managed in something approximating a normal tone, "like he's really that stupid --"

"I'm here!" Danny said from somewhere ahead of them in the shadows, and Ward briefly closed his eyes because _you absolute idiot._ "I'm here, just don't hurt him, we can talk about this, okay?"

"Danny, they don't want to _talk_ , they want --" The gun's sharp-edged barrel felt like it was digging through flesh to grind against bone, and he closed his eyes. "Shutting up now. Look, he doesn't even _have_ the Iron Fist, he -- _ow_ \-- yeah, okay, shutting up."

"It's okay, Ward," Danny said, edging out even further into the pools of light cast through the warehouse's high windows. As far as Ward could tell, he wasn't even wearing Orson Randall's guns. "It's all right, these guys just want the Iron Fist. Not you. And there's just one guy here -- all by himself, out in all this empty space --"

"Danny, you complete moron," Ward said, despairing, "they have _friends,_ you know."

"So do we," Danny said, with a devil-may-care grin.

There was a sharp pop and crack from high up on the catwalks under the shadowy ceiling. Danny spun around and reached under his coat and _oh,_ okay, he'd had one of the guns in an inside pocket. Ward did his part by ducking underneath the gun _pointed at his head, did he mention that_ and light flashed and then there was another sharp pop and his captor rolled away, clutching at his chest.

"Hey, Meachum!" Misty called down from the catwalk overhead. "Owed you a save."

"This is not a save!" Ward yelled back at her. "This is nearly getting me killed! _What is wrong with you people?!"_

“I got the guys out here,” Colleen called through the door. “I think we’re clear.”

"Are you okay, Ward?" Danny asked, the chi-revolver dangling from one hand, as he reached down to give Ward a hand up. His fingers clasped around Ward's, strong and warm, and he was grinning and it was so damn hard, as always, not to grin back.

"I regret the day I met you," Ward muttered, but he grasped Danny's hand and let himself be pulled to his feet.


	26. Ward pretends to have the Iron Fist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whumptober 2019: Dragged Away. [On DW](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1268142.html) | [On Tumblr](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/188185492953/day-6-dragged-away).

The entire category of "worst moments of Ward's life" is the kind of thing where ... it's not just that he has trouble figuring out the top _one;_ there's extremely stiff competition for the top _twenty._

But this is definitely going to be one of them -- Danny being dragged out of the room where they're being held, by people who clearly have every intention of torturing the Iron Fist out of him.

Which he doesn't have. 

Except they don't believe it.

The amount of effort that it took to subdue Danny even _without_ the Fist has left him bruised and bleeding, his hands tied behind him, and he's still fighting, flinging his body against his captors. Ward is well aware of his own limitations; he's _not_ good at hand to hand, despite Danny's training efforts, and he went down at the first punch. With his ears ringing, vision blurred, he tries to plow through them to get to Danny by sheer bodily force, but that doesn't work either; they put him on the floor again almost effortlessly, and one of them plants his foot in Ward's spine to keep him there.

"You idiots!" he yells, because he literally can't think of anything that can get them to stop for maybe, just maybe long enough for the cavalry (namely Colleen) to get here. "You've got the wrong guy! _I'm_ the Iron Fist!"

"You what?" says Head Goon #1.

"Ward!" Danny yelps.

"He ... gave it to me for ... safekeeping," Ward says, extemporizing wildly. "Why do you think he hasn't punched all of you into next week, I mean are you really as stupid as you look --" That gets him kicked again. "Ow ... okay ... bad choice of words ..."

"He's lying!" Danny protests wildly. "I'm the Iron Fist -- I mean -- look! Tattoo! _Hello!"_

"He gave it to me!"

"Ward! Shut up! No I didn't!"

"Torture them both?" says Head Goon #2 to #1, who shrugs.

"Wait, no!" Ward says, an immediate flaw in this plan becoming apparent as he's hauled to his feet.

It's probably just as well that Colleen shows up at that point with actual cavalry, namely Walker.

*

"You're a complete idiot," Danny says a little later.

He's reclining with an ice pack on his eye, leaning back on the couch in the shipping/receiving office outside the warehouse complex where they both came pretty close to getting thrown onto a container on a ship headed for parts unknown.

Colleen and Walker are outside, mopping up with maybe a little more glee than necessary. Ward has been tasked with keeping an eye on Danny, probably to keep Danny from trying to get up and throw down with the fight going on outside. Danny, who has multiple broken ribs and frankly should be in the hospital, in Ward's opinion, but at the very least keeping him lying on the couch is better than having him running around out there getting into who knows what.

Ward is very aware of his own bruises, which makes him testy. "Oh, _I'm_ an idiot. I'm not the one who tried to fight ten guys twice my size --"

"Yeah," Danny says around the ice pack. "You actually kind of did."

"Shut up."

" _I'm the Iron Fist_ \-- Ward, _really?"_

"It was the only thing I could think of!"

 _"Hello_ , dragon tattoo?"

"Hello, Davos has one on his back, Colleen on her arm -- it's not like I couldn't have it on, I dunno, my foot or something."

"That's ridiculous."

"Are you going to tell me stranger things haven't happened to us?"

"Oh, uh ... true," Danny says after a minute. "But you know, they were going to figure it out pretty quick."

"They were going to figure it out pretty quick with you too, but the question was how much would be left of you afterwards."

"Oh," Danny says.

There's a brief silence.

"Look, it was stalling," Ward says. "For, you know. The others to get here." And it galls him to admit it, how confident he actually is that they _will_ be there, no matter what. "I don't actually _want_ to be tortured in your place. For whatever that's worth."

"I think both of us have a lot of unresolved issues," Danny says, and Ward laughs at that; he can't help it.

Danny grins, makes an effort to sit up, and sinks back with a tiny moan.

"You need something?"

"Mmm ... more ice?"

Ward fetches it for him from the minifridge in the corner of the office, dumps out the ice pack in the bathroom and refills it. He sits carefully on the edge of the couch (sitting hurts; a lot of things hurt) and gives the ice pack to Danny.

"I just didn't want them to hurt you," Ward says, quiet, for Danny's ears only -- it's that thing where Danny can get sincerity out of him, without even _doing_ anything. Joy is the only other person who can do that. Maybe it's something family can get away with, when family isn't Harold.

"I know. I didn't want them to hurt you either." Danny smiles a little. "So please stop volunteering for it."

"Only if you stop getting kicked in the face."

Danny tries to make a face but only pulls on his bruises, based on his pained grimace. "I didn't do it on purpose."

"And yet. Avoidable."

"What am I supposed to do, put an ad in the _Times_ that says 'I am not the Iron Fist right now'?"

"If it helps!"

"No, I can't do that, because at least this way I can keep everyone's attention off Colleen," Danny says, and Ward resigns himself to many more kidnappings in his future.


	27. Hurt Danny & Defenders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whumptober 2019: Secret Injury. There was a request for this one and Danny with the Defenders. [On DW](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1275921.html) | [On Tumblr](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/188575683518/day-24-secret-injury-2)

Jessica was not going to be the one to ask Danny if he was okay. She was not going to be the -- she was not ...

Oh _fine._

"Hey," she said, leaning forward and giving his arm a shove. "You spacing out on us, Fist Boy?"

Okay, that wasn't _quite_ asking him if he was okay. At least it was in the right ballpark. Sitting across from them, half asleep with his chin propped on his fist, Luke cracked open an eye.

"No," Danny said, pulling away from her. "I mean, yes. Sorry. What?"

Jessica leaned back and gave him a thoughtful look. All around them was echoing emptiness. They were in the living room section of a closed furniture outlet store somewhere in the Bronx, just waiting for Matt to get back from using what Jessica refused to stop thinking of as his bat-ears to make sure there weren't any stray ninjas around that they'd missed. Luke had found an unused furniture truck for their getaway, and now Danny was ...

... hunched over, and shivering, and looking generally unwell. The light was bad in here, but he looked ashen to her.

"Seriously, man," Luke said, sitting up straighter. "You all right? One of those guys get in a good hit on you?"

Danny started to shake his head, then stopped and looked even more unwell. "I ... I'm okay. I mean, it's not that big of a deal --"

This was all that it really took, combined with his increasing pallor, for Jessica to move in on one side while Luke lurched to his feet and came around from the other side, effectively boxing him in.

"It was that header you took off the balcony, wasn't it? Let's see it, Fist," Luke said, his voice gentle.

Danny sighed and started to peel up the edge of his shirt, then blanched visibly when he started to lift his arm. Luke helped him pull back his shirt, and Jessica couldn't avoid making a small noise. His entire side was one enormous bruise, some of the ribs visibly deformed.

 _"Danny,"_ Luke said.

"It didn't feel this bad at first?" Danny protested, trying to see over his own elbow. "I'm redirecting chi to heal ... actually you know, can I maybe ... lie down?"

He didn't really have a choice; Luke put a hand on each of his shoulders and pushed him firmly down onto the couch. Jessica slid out of the way. This wasn't her thing; she didn't _do_ first aid. She especially didn't do it on someone who looked like _that._ She wished she'd noticed earlier that he was breathing funny, because now she couldn't _not_ notice; he was panting in short, shallow gasps.

"It's okay," Danny said breathlessly. "I just need to ... relax, and ... heal --"

Which was the point when Matt got back, and stood stock-still with his head tilted to one side for about a second and a half before telling them that Danny had a collapsed lung and needed a hospital.

Danny was still breathlessly insisting he didn't as they bundled him into the furniture truck.

*

"So apparently your oxygen saturation was some kind of really bad number when they brought you in," Jessica said.

"Mmm, okay, fine, so the chi-healing wasn't going as well as I thought," Danny mumbled. He was no longer wearing the oxygen mask he'd had on when she first saw him, but he was still a fairly unhealthy color, which made her wonder if they'd taken it off too soon. Useless doctors.

"You have to _tell_ us." And she wasn't sure why it annoyed her so much, or why she was even sticking around to insist on it.

"Sorry," he whispered.

"Oh, stop looking at me like that with your stupid face," she muttered, and hooked her ankle around a chair and dragged it over to sit in.

"You can go home."

"I am absolutely going home," she growled, checking her watch, "... in two hours, when Luke closes up at Harlem's Paradise and gets down here to take over."

"Jessica ..."

She started to plant a hand on his chest, then remembering the umpty-zillion broken ribs, shifted it to his shoulder instead. Which felt less like holding him down to stop him from being stupid, and more comforting. Oops. She tried to regain a little self-respect by being stern. "Rand, if you even try to get out of that bed I will personally put you back in it."

"Wasn't going to," he murmured, and blinked sleepily at her. "You need to sleep, Jessica. You're tired."

"I can sleep here," she said, and to prove it, leaned back in the chair. "I've slept in worse places."

Danny looked like he planned to call her on it, but he drifted off before he could.

She left her hand where it was -- too much trouble to remove it -- and settled in to wait for her relief shift to arrive.


	28. Ward passes out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whumptober 2019: Secret Injury. I got requests for this one with both Danny & the Defenders (the previous chapter), and Danny & Ward. [On DW](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1275822.html) | [On Tumblr](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/188573662183/day-24-secret-injury-1).

Waking up feeling like shit wasn't exactly something Ward had any lack of experience with. In fact, the symptoms were all too familiar: pounding headache, queasy stomach, raging thirst.

Opening his eyes to find Danny glaring at him was new, however.

He closed his eyes. He could not deal with _that_ while feeling like _this._

"Ward, I _saw_ you wake up," Danny said. He sounded genuinely pissed. Ward felt something cold bump his arm. "You're supposed to drink. The antiemetic shot they gave you ought to be kicking in by now."

"Don't want to," Ward said on general principles, but Danny prodded him again and then he found himself going from horizontal to vertical without having done anything. Cracking his eyes open again, he discovered that this was because he was in a hospital bed and Danny was gripping the bed controls with an expression that usually went along with punching through concrete. There were curtains on either side of them, closing them into a nominally private space.

"Where am I?" he asked, starting to reach for the plastic water bottle Danny shoved at him only to be brought up short by the tug of an IV in his arm. "Uh ... that's new."

"You're in the ER," Danny said. He laid the bed control aside and sat on the edge of the bed. 

"Why?" Ward said, although he had a pretty good idea by this point, even if the events leading up to it were slightly hazy.

"Because you didn't _tell me_ you're still sick from the other day and you aren't drinking and you let me drag around sightseeing in hundred-degree heat until you _passed out,_ that's why. Do you _want_ to die?"

"Right now?" Ward said, pressing the water bottle to his aching forehead. "Yes."

"Drink," Danny said in an exasperated tone that Ward found vaguely familiar, although he couldn't place exactly why until Danny added, "Small sips, so it stays down," and then he realized (to his own exasperation) that Danny sound like, well ... like Ward, when dealing with _him._

This was so unfair.

He sipped, hesitantly at first, since the whole "keeping water down" thing hadn't been working out so well for him for the last day or two. Whatever they'd given him seemed to be working, though. "So when do I get out of here?" he asked.

"Maybe when you can stand up without passing out would be good," Danny said. "Ward, you know you can tell me if you don't feel good, right? I'm not going to get mad."

"You're mad now," he couldn't help pointing out.

"Because of you almost dying! Not because of you being sick!"

"I didn't 'almost die.'" He punctuated it with air quotes with his IV-trailing free hand.

"You're in the ER," Danny sulked. "That doesn't speak of good life choices."

Ward had, by this point, finished about half the bottle of water and was surprised to find that he was kind of, a little bit, hungry for the first time in days. "Any chance you could find me something to eat? I think I could actually eat."

"Yes!" Danny said, and shot off the bed and vanished.

He was back in a few minutes with a bowl of broth and noodles, and Ward was suddenly, wildly _ravenous._ "Eat it slow," Danny warned, handing it to him, and perched on the edge of the bed again. Ward focused on not just wolfing it down, not because Danny said so but because he was aware it wasn't a good idea (another thing that, between alcohol and drugs and withdrawal from both, he had a little too much experience with), and it took about half the bowl to go from EAT EVERYTHING NOW to "okay, that's getting to be a little bit too much", and Danny took the bowl back.

"Feel okay?" he asked.

"Yes," Ward said, a little bit sullenly, but it was true; he actually did, and the headache was even going away. He was mainly just tired.

Danny stayed on the edge of the bed, swinging a foot that Ward could feel tapping rhythmically against the underside of the bed. In some ways Danny hadn't changed that much since they were kids; he was still a twitchy little bundle of random nerve impulses, going a dozen different ways at once, especially when his brain was working on something. They should've had those fidget spinner things when they were kids, Ward thought; Danny would have liked those. Maybe he'd still like them. Ward thought maybe he'd buy him one. At the very least it might make him easier to deal with on long plane flights.

"If you've got something to say, you can spit it out," he said wearily. "Yell at me or whatever."

"I'm not going to yell at you. I'm not mad. I was just worried," Danny said, which was blatantly obvious by the way it was written all over his face anyway. "Please just tell me if you need to sit out something I want to do, okay? You don't even have to say why. Just don't ..." He took a breath, and Ward could see him biting back on everything else he wanted to say.

The worst part, Ward _knew_ all of it anyway. He _knew_ Danny wasn't Harold, knew Danny wouldn't hate him or even look at him funny if he admitted that he didn't feel well and needed to spend a day or two just lying down in the hotel.

Which didn't make it any easier to do.

Instead, he said, "Didn't you go fight Davos with a broken leg?"

"That's ..." 

"Different? How?"

Danny opened his mouth, shut it, and then he grinned. "It's really annoying when you're right, you know that?"

"Only because it happens so much."

"It's worse when I really want to be mad at you and can't."

"So you admit you're a gigantic hypocrite."

"I admit that we're both idiots and also kind of fucked up," Danny said.

Ward laughed; he couldn't help it. " _Kind of?"_

Danny smiled and sprawled on the bed, boneless as a cat, propping his chin on his fist. "I get scared because I don't want to lose you, Ward," he said quietly, and Ward had sudden echoes of Danny back in New York, that same naked sincerity: _The people that I care about the most ... people like you, Ward._ That stupid sincerity; he had no defenses against it. "I don't want to take away your freedom. I just want you to know you can talk to me before it gets this bad."

Ward swallowed, and managed to say, "Again, hypocrite."

"I know," Danny said, and he smiled in a distant kind of way -- like he was looking back into his own past. "How about we both work on it?"

"I'll believe that when I see it," Ward said, and closed his eyes, and he just -- damn it -- he didn't _want_ to be this person who had to push himself 'til he collapsed because he couldn't admit to a simple human weakness. "Yeah, okay, I'll work on it. Good enough?"

"Good enough," Danny said, and poked him in the arm. "Drink."

"Yes, _mother,"_ Ward said, exasperated, and reached for the bottle of water.


	29. Danny heals a hurt Colleen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a Tumblr request for Ironwing with Colleen getting hurt. [Originally posted on Tumblr.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/189851861563/if-you-ever-want-to-write-some-whump-for-ironwing)

They were fighting all out against a group of Hand assassins, and Danny didn't see one of them pull out something that definitely _wasn't_ a sword -- a small clay jar, trailing a ribbon -- until Colleen yelled, "Down!" and threw herself at him. They both went sprawling, and then there was a sudden wave of pressure and noise, followed by a ringing silence and the pattering of gravel.

Danny raised his head to see that they were alone in the alley. Colleen was stirring weakly on top of him.

"Colleen? You okay?"

"Cover their escape," she panted. Her voice sounded like it was coming from underwater; his ears were still ringing. "Damn it."

She rolled off Danny, tried to stand up and staggered against the wall.

"You're hurt," Danny said, scrambling to his feet. He almost fell over again, and caught himself on the wall. He didn't think it was anything worse than disorientation from the blast, but Colleen, on the other hand -- there was blood down one side of her face, and she had her hand pressed to her side.

"I'm fine," she said, trying to wave him off. "We need to get out of here."

She made it just fine for the first steps, and then started to stumble. Danny caught her arm.

"You can sit down if you need to --"

"No." She shook her head. "Let's get somewhere defensible."

They were in a crumbling, abandoned mountainside temple complex, beautiful in a desolate kind of way, but generally lacking in places to hole up; the walls were falling in, and trees grew out of the remains of old wells. By the time they got back to their rented van on the old road down the mountain, Colleen was weaving and leaning heavily on Danny. He could smell blood, coppery and strong.

"You really are hurt. Colleen, let me look."

She shook her head. "Drive," she rasped out. "Let's put some distance between us and them."

He drove, but not far, and pulled off behind some trees. The van was old and dented, but it had doors that locked; they'd been sleeping in the back of it. He made sure that the locks were down and then crawled between the seats and shook out the sleeping bags. "Colleen, come on back here."

"The Hand ..." she panted weakly from the front seat. 

"... are a few miles up the mountain. Even if they follow, they're likely to go right by. Colleen, let me see."

Teeth gritted, she tried to climb out of the seat, then sank back into it, but not before Danny glimpsed the wet, dark gleam of blood. His chest clenched with a rush of fear.

"Colleen, come on, let me see."

He got her into the back, finally, and laid her down on the sleeping bag. She gasped in pain when he lifted her jacket, and it was his turn to gasp when he saw the broken end of a Hand blade embedded in her side.

"Uh ... wow." She was trying to prop herself up and look down at it. Weakly, she tried to smile at him. "I didn't even feel that go in."

Danny just stared at it. They were on a mountainside. They had few first-aid supplies, and it was half a day's drive to town. A wound like that would kill her.

"Danny?" Her hand, cold and blood-stained, caught his wrist. "Are you okay?"

The sheer absurdity of that, coming from someone who was covered in her own blood, shook him out of it, enough to start thinking again. "Colleen, I'm going to have to try to heal this."

"Okay," she said, one simple word, with a world of trust in it.

Trust that she didn't extend to any other human being. It shook him down to his core.

 _I can do this. I can do this._ He swallowed thickly. "I'm going to have to get this out before I can do anything with it. Colleen -- I'm sor --"

He didn't have a chance to finish because Colleen closed her hand around the shattered end of the blade and yanked.

She screamed as it slid out of her side, and dropped it to the floor of the van, where it clattered out of sight. Her trembling fingers curled, slick with fresh blood.

"Colleen!" Danny yelped. He grabbed for anything in reach that would stanch the flow of blood, which turned out to be his one remaining clean hoodie, and pressed it against her side.

Colleen was chalk-pale, her eyes rolled back in her head, but she managed to say, with a shaky half-laugh, "Hurts less when it's fast."

"If you're taking out a _splinter,_ sure!" His hands were shaking, his teeth chattering. This was beyond him. Her hot blood was soaking rapidly through the fabric. When he'd healed her before, he'd been in a relatively safe place, with Bakuto to help. He was going to screw this up. He didn't have enough control ...

"Danny," she whispered. "You can do it." She sucked in a breath. "I think I'm going to ... pass out now ..."

"Colleen!"

He clutched at her frantically. She was still breathing, though rapid and shallow. Danny drew the soaked wad of cloth away from her side with trembling hands, and pressed his right palm over her gory side. Her blood was slick and hot against his hand.

Should he clean it first? Did it matter? He wished he'd listened, wished he'd learned more ... but it was too late now.

He bowed his head and tried to concentrate. Let the energy flow through him.

 _Now open your fist,_ Bakuto had said.

It was more than a weapon. _He_ was more than a weapon. And the gift in his hands was Colleen's only hope.

He closed his eyes and gave himself over to it.

*

A long time later, he lay curled up beneath the sleeping bags with her.

There was blood everywhere. He'd been drifting in and out since the healing; he didn’t remember wrapping them both up in the sleeping bags or bandaging Colleen’s side, but he must have. He was dimly aware, through his own exhaustion and weakness, of her breathing soft and steady against his neck.

The Hand had better not find them here. Neither of them were in any shape to fight.

 _But we're going to be okay. Both of us._ He curled his blood-sticky hand gently around the nape of her neck, the hand that could kill or could heal.

_We'll be all right._


	30. Ward and Colleen captured together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt: _I would love to see an Iron Fist fic where Colleen and Ward were in distress together, (maybe captured to be used against Danny) and had to work together to make it out._ I absolutely LOVE this idea and want to eventually write the full fic version of it, but here's a scene or two! [ Originally posted on Tumblr.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/189936882318/i-dont-know-if-this-would-interest-you-but-i)

"This is bullshit," Ward said. He was pacing again, he couldn't seem to help it. He just hated being locked into places he couldn't get out of. _Hated_ it. "Absolute bullshit. There is no earthly reason to leave us locked up like this. They could at least tell us what they want. _What the hell do you want?"_ he snarled at the ceiling.

Colleen slowly cracked her eyes open and delivered a wordless death glare.

"Sorry," Ward said. He actually was sorry; he knew she felt like shit and he also knew he wasn't helping. It was just so damn hard to deal with this.

He went and sat on the edge of the bed -- actually a pallet on the floor. They had been provided with a grand total of one (1) pallet, as well as a toilet and a sink. "How are you feeling? Any, um ... fisting coming back?" He winced. It was impossible to talk about the damn thing without making accidental innuendos. It was, for the most part, funny when it was Danny, but suddenly felt wildly inappropriate with Colleen.

Colleen stretched out her arm and stared down at the dragon tattoo for a minute. "No," she said at last. "It ... the drugs ... I can't _think._ Can't concentrate."

Ward still had a mild headache, but it was wearing off fast, and he was trying hard not to think about what they'd been given or in what ways it was going to mess with his ongoing attempts to stay off hard narcotics. For some reason they didn't cover "nonconsensually drugged by goons" in NA. Colleen had clearly been given something much more hardcore, which implied they knew she was a threat and he wasn't.

Colleen struggled to sit up. Ward offered an arm, which she ignored, but she clawed her way up him anyway like a human monkeybars, and finally got herself upright with her back against the wall.

"Should you be doing that?" Ward asked, eyeing her. She was swaying in place, and had gone alarmingly pale as soon as she was vertical.

Colleen glared at him.

"Right. None of my business. Do you, uh ... want a drink of water?"

She hesitated, then gave a slight nod.

There were some paper cups on the back of the sink, an oddly considerate touch on the part of their captors that Ward had no intention of thanking them for. There was a single coarse blanket on the pallet, a roll of toilet paper, and that was the sum total of creature comforts in the cell. But at least they didn't have to drink with their hands; small favors, right? He filled a cup with water and took it over to Colleen.

Her hands were shaking, but she rebuffed his attempt to help her drink, instead holding the cup with both hands, and managed to get most of the water in her mouth rather than down her front.

Ward sat on the edge of the pallet and tried not to think about the possibility that whatever they'd given her was really, truly _dangerous._ His relationship with Colleen might be conflicted at the best of times, but he didn't even want to think about the effect on Danny if anything happened to her ... and anyway, he didn't _want_ anything to happen to her. The fact that Colleen didn't like him was a sign of good taste on her part, as far as he was concerned.

Colleen set the paper cup down very carefully, with a small sigh. She swallowed a couple of times, and gave him a look that was, at least, less hostile than the look she'd been giving him a minute ago. "What?"

"What what?"

"You're staring at me."

"Sorry," Ward said, looking away.

It was chilly in the cell. He was in a T-shirt, Colleen in short sleeves, but she was sweating anyway. He wondered, again, what they'd given her, and what he was supposed to do about if she did ... well ... have a medical emergency of some sort.

He was not prepared to deal with that.

He wasn't prepared to deal with any of this. Even traveling around with Danny hadn't inured him to the fact that his life apparently included random kidnappings and druggings as a regular feature.

Next to him, Colleen was breathing slowly and deeply with her eyes closed and hands resting loose and open on her knees. Meditating, Ward was pretty sure, though she might be falling asleep or trying not to throw up or ... well, it was hard to say. At least she didn't seem to be having seizures or anything like that.

"This is probably Danny-related, right?" he said. "I mean, the only reason why anyone would want both of us is probably because of Danny --"

"Shhhhh," she hissed at him, between breaths.

Okay, fine. He got up and paced again, trying to do it quietly.

The problem with being locked up with nothing to do was that he had only the contents of his own head to entertain himself, and his head wasn't really the best place to be. Having nothing to do except _think_ was not his favorite thing. At least with Danny, there was someone to bicker with.

"Colleen," he began, but just then she got up off the pallet, very slowly and carefully, like a sleepwalker. She walked slowly over to the solid metal door of the cell, stood there for a moment with her head lowered.

Her head snapped up abruptly. Brilliant white light spiraled up her arm. Colleen threw a punch at the door. The blow tore it off its hinges. There was a tremendous ringing clang and a lot of concrete dust.

Colleen dropped her arm and stood swaying slightly in place.

 _"Nice,"_ Ward said in deep appreciation, peering out into what turned out to be a short corridor with cinderblock walls and a door at either end. "Very nice. I don't suppose you know which way to go -- uh, Colleen --"

She wilted. He managed to swoop in and catch her, and then he found himself an armful of sweaty, limp Colleen. Ward took a deep breath, coughed on concrete dust, and picked her up. At least she wasn't too big, though he could tell that carrying her was going to get exhausting very quickly.

Somewhere in the facility, an alarm had started ringing. Ward peeked out into the hallway, picked a direction at random, and went.


	31. Danny, Ward, & Joy as little kids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was a gift for in-a-peartree. [Originally posted on DW.](https://in-a-peartree.dreamwidth.org/5545.html)

When Ward was a very small child, the Rand corporate galas used to be a combination of mind-numbing boredom and a strange, exciting amount of attention. Dressed up in his little tux, he was passed around between grown-ups who used to call him cute and give him treats. 

Now he was too old for that, and his job at these parties was to watch the two littler kids, who were now old enough to get dressed up and go to the grown-up events too.

It was a nightmare.

Ward _knew_ he hadn't been that much of a brat when he was their age. Mostly because the adults were watching him every minute (at least, that's how he remembered it) and he never had a _chance._

Where had they gone _now?_ He'd already checked the dessert table, and gotten chased out of the kitchen by a scolding caterer lady. He was reduced to skulking around the ballroom peeking under white tablecloths one by one, and finally, after checking half the ballroom, was drawn by the sound of quiet giggling to the right table.

"I am going to kill you two," he whispered fiercely, as Danny and Joy looked up with wide-eyed innocence from the little drama playing out on the carpet with toy ponies and dinosaurs. "Get out of there."

"No!" they protested, retreating as far away as they could get. The table rocked ominously. Ward hastily caught and steadied it. He could just imagine the reaction from the adults if he accidentally flipped a table while trying to drag two seven-year-olds out from under it. (Dad's reaction in particular didn't bear thinking about.)

He couldn't really think what to do except crawl underneath with them. The tablecloth fell all the way to the floor, shutting them into a private dimly-lit cave that brought back sudden memories. He _had_ played under similar tables as a little kid sometimes, come to think of it. Probably for the same reason as Danny and Joy -- because the adults were boring and underneath here, it was private and fun, at least until someone came and dragged you out again.

The kids were giggling like this was the best thing that had ever happened to them. "Play with us, Ward!" Joy whispered, piling onto him and putting her sticky little arms around his neck. Despite his attempts to keep them away from the dessert table, they'd both ingested so much sugar that they probably wouldn't sleep for a week.

"I'm not here to play with you," he whispered back.

"Lay down on the floor, Ward. We're all trapped in a snow cave and we have to stay warm."

"No -- get off --" Now he had two giggling little kids piled on him, pinning him down. And he couldn't thrash around to escape or he risked pulling the entire tablecloth down on top of him. There was a My Little Pony jabbing him in the small of his back.

"I'm going to murder you," he whispered to the giggling hellions holding him down. "I'll hide your bodies in the chocolate fountain."

Result of murder threats: more giggling. They were the _worst._


End file.
